
Book_v iV\35 



BOOKS 



PUBLISHED BY G. LANE & P. P. SANDFORD, 

AT THE CONFERENCE OFFICE, 200 MULBERRY-ST. 

NEW-YORK. 

A Treatise on Self -Knowledge, 

BY JOHN MASON, A. M. 
To which is prefixed a brief Memoir of the Author. 

A new Edition. Large 18mo. Forty -four cents. 

This has now been a standard work for nearly a century, and 
is one of the best that can be placed in the hands of an intelligent 
young person to promote his advancement in knowledge and 
piety. It is divided into three parts ; X\\e first treats of the "na- 
ture and importance" of self-knowledge ; the second, shows " the 
excellence and advantage of this kind of science ;" and the third 
points out "how self-knowledge is to be obtained." The work 
itself is too well known to need any recommendation : of the 
present edition we may say that it is one of the neatest and most 
complete ever published in this country ; it contains all the notes, 
inserted in their proper places, while in many editions, both En- 
glish and American, they are either altogether omitted, or else 
lumped together at the end of the book. 

Misericordia; 

OR, 

CONTEMPLATIONS ON THE MERCY OF GOD, 

Regarded especially in its Aspects toward the Young. 

BY REV. J. W. ETHERIDGE. 

Large 18mo. Price Forty-four cents, in muslin. 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY LANE & SANDFORD. 



Life of Thomas Walsh, 

Composed in great part from his own Accounts. 
BY JAMES MORGAN. 

A new Edition. Large 18mo. Thirty-eight cents. 

Mr. Walsh was brought up a rigid Papist, but was early led by 
the Spirit of truth to forsake the errors of Romanism. He soon 
afterward commenced his labours as a Methodist preacher, and 
closed his brief and useful life at the early age of twenty-eight. 
He was remarkable for his extraordinary acquaintance with the 
original Scriptures. " Such a master of Biblical knowledge," 
observes Mr. Wesley, " I never saw before, and never expect to 
see again. . . Whenever he preached, whether in English or Irish, 
the word was sharper than a two-edged sword ; so that I do not 
remember to have known any preacher who in so few years as 
he remained upon earth was an instrument of converting so 
many sinners from the error of their w T ays. O what a man to 
be snatched away in the strength of his years !" 



Memoirs of several Wesleyan Preachers, 

Selected gtintipullg from 

Jackson's Lives of early Methodist Preachers, and 
the Arminian and Wesleyan Magazines. 

One volume, 12mo. Seventy-five cents. 

This interesting volume comprises Memoirs of Thomas Olivers, 
James Creighton, Sampson Staniforth, Thomas Taylor, James 
Rogers, Thomas Roberts, and George Darby Dermott, chiefly 
written by themselves. Some of these were among the early 
coadjutors of Mr. Wesley. 



PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 



THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH, 



BY REV. PETER M'OWAN. 



NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY G. LANE <fe P. P. SANDFORD, 

FOR THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, AT THE CONFERENCE 

OFFICE, 200 MULBERRY-STREET, 

James Collord, Printer, 
1843. 






JiS&V TheoL SOTtt^ 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Page 
Original and general design of the sab- 
bath 7 

CHAPTER II. 

Moral obligation of the day . . 30 

CHAPTER IIL 

Its change from the seventh to the first 
day in the week . '. . ' . .54 

CHAPTER IV. 

The spirit and manner in which it ought 
to be sanctified ..... 103 



THE SABBATH. 
CHAPTER I. 

ITS ORIGINAL AND GENERAL DESIGN. 

While the institution of the sabbath is a 
fence to the general interests of -religion, and 
a bulwark thrown up to repress the floods 
of ungodliness, it also operates as a test to 
the children of men ; discovering their love 
or their hatred, their loyalty or their rooted 
enmity, to Jehovah, their sovereign Lord. 
In proportion as nations, churches, or indi- 
viduals, have risen in the scale of religion 
and morality, they have venerated and re- 
ligiously improved this holy day ; and in the 
same degree as they declined from the love 
of God, and the belief of his truth, they 
have despised and profaned it. The right- 
eous call it " a delight, the holy of the Lord, 
honourable ;" and they honour him, not 
doing their own ways, nor finding their own 



THE SABBATH, 



pleasure, nor speaking their own words, 
But the ungodly say, "When will the new 
moon be gone, that we may sell corn ? and 
the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat V 
Some deny its moral obligation — represent 
ing it as a piece of state policy, an invention 
of priestcraft, or a figment of the Jewish 
economy. Others admit that it is a holy, 
wise, and gracious institution ; but, on the 
score of public utility, want of time, or the 
heavy stake they have in the trade or com- 
merce of the country, they pervert it, more 
or less, to purposes of secular toil, or of 
worldly pleasure. Many, among the work- 
ing classes, spend it in roaming through the 
fields, in club-houses, or in lyceum reading- 
rooms ; while great numbers avail them- 
selves of the facilities afforded by steam- 
packets and railways, to visit tea-gardens 
and public-houses, in distant towns and vil- 
lages. By these and other methods, the 
law of the sabbath is made void, the house 
of God is forsaken by multitudes, the ordi- 
nances of the gospel are despised, and prac- 
tical infidelity, like a flood, spreads through 
the land. Convinced that the desecration 



THE SABBATH. 9 

of this blessed day is one of the national 
sins for which God is now chastising us, 
and that its sanctification is essentially con- 
nected with the glory of God, and the per- 
manent revival of religion, we invite the 
prayerful attention of our readers, 

I. To its primeval and general design. 

The designs of the Most High are all 
worthy of himself; and, except when he 
purposely veils them in impenetrable mys- 
tery, it is no less our duty than our interest 
to search them out. As far as this institu- 
tion is concerned, they are as obvious as 
they are gracious ; and, being understood, 
they cannot fail to be appreciated by all who 
fear his name. 

1 . The sabbath was instituted to comme- 
morate the creation of the world, in the 
space of six days, by the word of Jehovah's 
power. 

That the world was created, and that it 
was " not made of things which do appear," 
but was an actual creation, produced by the 
one living and true God, is a fundamental 
truth in the scheme of revealed religion ; 
and by many it is regarded as a self-evident 



10 THE SABBATH. 

truth. Those who assume the latter posi- 
tion, however, err, not knowing the darkness 
and natural atheism of the human heart. 
Though the distinctions between mind and 
matter, dependence and independence, finite 
and infinite — between the living God and a 
thing, whether a sun, a star, or a stone — 
are to us palpable ; many of the wisest 
heathens either could not, or would not, 
discern them. They believed that the 
world was eternal ; and they worshipped 
the creatures of God, animate and inanimate, 
together with images and imaginary beings, 
who they supposed presided over the ele- 
ments, and the destinies of men. God, who 
knew the end from the beginning, foresaw 
this irrational lapse ; and, to prevent it from 
becoming universal, to guard his people 
against the sin, and to furnish the world 
with a standing demonstration of the false- 
hood and absurdity of idolatry, he instituted 
the sabbath; which, by its weekly return, 
challenged for himself supreme and undivided 
worship, on the obvious ground, that the 
heavens and all their host, the earth and the 
sea, with all that is in them, were created 



THE SABBATH. 11 

by his power ; and were, consequently, de- 
pendant on him for their continued exist- 
ence. 

Thus, " the heavens declare the glory of 
God, and the firmament showeth his handy 
work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and 
night unto night showeth knowledge. There 
is no speech nor language where their voice 
is not heard. Their line" ("rule," or " di- 
rection," as it reads in the margin) " is gone 
out through all the earth, and their words to 
the end of the world." In this passage 
David, with elegant propriety, and in perfect 
accordance with the principles of sound 
philosophy, represents heaven, with its sun, 
moon, and stars ; the firmament, with its 
vapours, winds, meteors, and winged fowl ; 
day, with its radiance, and night, with its 
darkness ; as being vocal with God their 
Maker's praise, and responsive with instruc- 
tion to universal man. The import of their 
adoring and edifying speech, or voice, was, 
" Sons of men, why marvel ye at us ? or 
why look ye so earnestly on us, as though, 
by our own power or holiness, we had made 
ourselves, or were able to bless you ? No ! 



12 THE SABBATH. 

we are creatures ' fearfully and wonderfully 
made,' it is true, but still creatures. Je- 
hovah is our Maker ; he alone is infinite, 
eternal, and unchangeable. Whatever beauty, 
power, or benign influences we possess, he 
has imparted ; and he has imparted them to 
us that, as his instruments, we might serve 
and benefit you. Therefore, turn your eyes 
from us to him ; express your gratitude to 
him ; let your adoration and praise be ex- 
clusively given to him : for he alone is ' God 
over all, blessed for ever.' ,: 

The testimony thus given, in expressive 
silence, to the supreme divinity of Jehovah, 
together with the wide-spread tradition of the 
creation, the sacredness of the seventh day, 
the fall of man, the divine institution of 
sacrifice, and the promise of a Saviour, 
constituted that " truth of God," which the 
fabricators of idolatry " changed into a lie ;" 
and that " witness of himself," which God 
gave " to all nations ;" and for the disre- 
garding of which they were, in the emphatic 
language of the apostle, " without excuse." 
The sabbath, by thus commemorating the 
creation, evidenced the relation of God to 



THE SABBATH. 13 

our race, as our Creator and Preserver. It 
was a sign (Ezek. xx, 12) between him and 
them, which, while it proved his eternal 
power and Godhead, evinced their obliga- 
tions to worship him in spirit and in truth. 
Those who "did not like to retain God in 
their knowledge," who had become " vain in 
their imaginations," " whose foolish heart 
was darkened," and who, though " profess- 
ing themselves to be wise," had become 
" fools" — in utter disregard of the voice of 
reason, the testimony of tradition, the remon- 
strances of conscience, and the import of the 
sabbatic sign — " changed the glory of the 
incorruptible God into an image made like 
to corruptible man, and to birds, and four- 
footed beasts and creeping things ; and wor- 
shipped and served the creature more than 
the Creator." - But the faithful owned the 
sign ; and, by keeping it holy, they avouched 
Jehovah to be their God, and testified their 
dissent from, and their abhorrence of, idol- 
atry, which said there were many gods ; 
and of atheism, which averred there was no 
God. Acts xiv, 17; xvii, 24-27; Rom. i, 
18-25; x, 18. 



14 THE SABBATH. 

By blessing the sabbath and hallowing it, 
by resting therein, and by challenging it for 
himself, God stamped it with his own 
" image and superscription ;" and hence 
its desecration was reckoned, among the 
Jews, as a sin of treason against his infinite 
Majesty. This suggests a satisfactory rea- 
son, why its profanation in the desert was 
punished with death. The people had but 
recently left Egypt, a land of idols ; where 
the sabbatic mound was nearly, if not quite, 
obliterated : they were about to take posses- 
sion of a country inhabited by nations who 
ascribed the creation and conservation of the 
world to false deities ; and, as God intended 
them to be depositories of his truth, and wit- 
nesses of his Godhead, it was imperative, 
that the violation of that day, which was so 
intimately connected with the preservation 
and purity of his worship, should be punish- 
ed with the utmost rigour. The stoning of 
the man who was found gathering sticks on 
the sabbath is narrated Num. Xv, 30-36 : 
and from the context, it is apparent, that the 
offence was committed presumptuously; that 
is, in contempt of the law, and in defiance 



THE SABBATH. 15 

of the Lawgiver. The treasonable character 
of this sin also accounts for the fact, that 
while the inhabitants of other countries, re- 
sident in the promised land, were left to 
choose whether or not they would submit to 
the Jewish ceremonial, " the stranger within 
their gates" was as peremptorily required to 
keep the sabbath-rest as strictly as them- 
selves. This, also, more than justifies the 
holy indignation with which Nehemiah con- 
tended with the Tyrians, and with the nobles 
of Israel who patronized them, in the sale 
of their wares in Jerusalem. Neh. xiii, 
15-22. 

2. It was intended to remind us, that God 
is our sovereign Proprietor ; that time is his 
gift ; and that the chief end of our existence 
is to glorify and enjoy him. 

By enjoining that we cease from the pro- 
secution of our worldly avocations on each 
seventh day, for the purpose of holding fel- 
lowship with himself, God impressively re- 
minds us, that this world is not our home ; 
that its productions and possessions are in- 
sufficient to make us happy ; that its service 
does not constitute our chief business ; and 



16 THE SABBATH. 

that as he is our Author, so he is our chief 
end, our life, and the only satisfying portion 
of our souls. By commanding us to "keep 
holy the sabbath," he teacheth us, that time 
is his, that it is ours only in trust, and that 
it is our duty to spend it according to rn> 
will ; that is, to fulfil the duties of our station 
during " six days," and on " the seventh" 
to worship him in the beauty of holiness. 
Viewing the suspension of worldly toil as an 
act of worship, there is a glorious sublimity, 
and an emphatic meaning, in the stillness of 
a sabbath morning, in a sabbath-keeping 
country. It is nature doing reverence to 
God, time paying homage to eternity, earth 
imitating heaven, mind triumphing over 
matter, and truth reigning over error ; while 
Piety gives expression to the whole, as she 
chants, " The Lord is great, and greatly to 
be praised : he is to be feared above all 
gods. For all the gods of the nations are 
idols ; but the Lord made the heavens. 
Honour and majesty are before him : strength 
and beauty are in his sanctuary. Give unto 
the Lord the glory due unto his name; bring 
an offering, and come into his courts. O 



THE SABBATH. 17 

worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness ! 
Fear before him all the earth." 

"How still the morning of the hallow'd day! 
Mute is the voice of rural labour — hush'd 
The ploughboy's whistle, and the milkmaid's song. 
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath 
Of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers, 
That yester-morn bloom'd waving in the breeze. 
Sounds the most faint attract the ear — the hum 
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew, 
The distant bleating mid- way up the hill. 
Calmness seems throned on yon unmoving cloud. 
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas, 
The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale ; 
And sweeter, from the sky, the gladsome lark 
Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook 
Murmurs more gently down the deep-sunk glen ; 
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke 
O'ermounts the mist, is heard, at intervals, 
The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise." 

Grahame. 

3. It was intended to prevent the poor 
from being oppressed, and beasts of burden 
from being over-wrought. 

To teach man industry, God spent six 
days in making the world ; though he could, 
with equal ease, have made it in six hours ; 
and, to prevent industry from becoming a 
curse, and an occasion of consumption, he 
2 



18 THE SABBATH. 

"rested on the seventh day, and hallowed 
it." Foreseeing the cruel exactions which 
avarice and perverted power would inflict, 
he, as became a sovereign Benefactor, inter- 
posed the shield of his authority between 
the servant and his master, the labourer and 
his employer, the injured beast and its cruel 
proprietor ; saying, " In it thou shalt not 
do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy 
daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy 
maid-servant, nor thy cattle." The indus- 
trious classes, of all countries, are prepared 
to testify, that the rest of the seventh day is 
essential to the preservation of health, and 
the enjoyment of life. Those workmen w r ho 
labour on the sabbath, in constructing rail- 
ways, (melancholy instances of which have 
been enacted all over the country,) generally 
spend more than their extra w r ages in pur- 
chasing strong drink, to supply stimulus to 
their exhausted powers : and we have been 
assured, by an extensive and conscientious 
contractor, that the work which these men 
execute in seven days is generally less in 
amount, and worse in point of execution, 
than that which is done by others in six. 



THE SABBATH. 19 

Medical men, of the first respectability, have 
given it as their opinion, that to spend the 
sabbath in devotional exercises is much 
more* healthful than to lounge it away in 
idleness, or to devote it to the revelry of dis- 
sipation.* Thus, the gracious Author of our 
existence made the sabbath for the happiness 
of man ; and while it is the interest of all to 
keep it holy, it is especially the interest of 
the poor. 

As for beasts of burden, they are no more 
capable of sustaining incessant labour than 
men. Coach proprietors, and others, who 
let horses out on hire, know, that, without a 
weekly rest, their strength is speedily wasted, 
and their lives are materially shortened. In 
this way God avenges the wrongs of these 
generous animals, on such of their owners 
as abuse them : and hence they have, for 
the most part, come to the conclusion, that 
it is more profitable to allow their cattle to 
rest one day in seven, than to run them 
down by keeping them constantly on the 
road. 

Though the preservation of health, and 

* See Appendix. 



20 THE SABBATH. 

the prolongation of life, be but secondary 
designs of this institution, they illustrate the 
tender mercy of God, and the benignant 
character of revealed religion ; and they 
place in a true light the hypocrisy of those 
infidel philosophers and mock-patriots, who, 
under pretence of emancipating the poor 
from priestly domination, and magisterial 
rule, deny the divine obligation of the sab- 
bath, and encourage them in its habitual 
desecration. In this, as in other particulars, 
the way of infidelity is not equal : for, while 
the general profanation of the sabbath would 
give license to the few, it would enslave the 
many ; while it would place worldly pleasure 
within the reach of those who could pay the 
extravagant price at which alone it can be 
purchased, it would doom an immense pro- 
portion of the poor to perpetual and grinding 
servitude. Each party of sabbath-breakers, 
who either feast at home, or jaunt abroad, 
not only rob God of the time which he 
claims for his own worship, but they rob 
either the brute creation, or certain of their 
fellow-men, of that rest which God gave 
them, and of which no earthly power can 



THE SABBATH. 21 

innocently deprive them. Let the divine 
authority of the sabbath be given up, and 
the working man's right to it is irretrievably 
sacrificed. It is then left to his employer's 
caprice, to decide whether he shall rest, or 
redouble his toil ; and the essential selfish- 
ness of human nature justifies us in affirm- 
ing, that the decision will be against rest, 
as often as avarice concludes that labour will 
be most profitable. Let the divine authority 
of the sabbath be given up, and then all 
days are alike. The merciful arrangements 
of the humane will be neutralized by the 
exorbitant exactions of the cruel ; the w T ill of 
the righteous (if righteousness could exist 
without a sabbath) will be resisted by the 
wicked ; the weak will be coerced by the 
strong ; in a word, the sabbath will be lost, 
the landmarks of morality will be destroyed, 
and a flood of worldliness and oppression 
will sweep over the whole earth. Thus, 
while the appointment of the sabbath proves 
the prescience of God, in his perfect ac- 
quaintance with the constitution, and the 
future circumstances, of our fallen race, it 
also illustrates his tender solicitude for the 



22 THE SABBATH. . 

happiness of his creatures generally, and of 
man in particular. 

" With dove-like wings, peace o'er yon village broods : 
The dizzying mill-wheel rests ; the anvil's din 
Hath ceased ; all, all around is quietness. 
Less fearful on this day, the limping hare 
Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man, 
Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free, 
Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large ; 
And as his stiff, unwieldly bulk he rolls, 
His iron-arm'd hoofs gleam in the morning ray. 
But chiefly man the day of rest enjoys. 
Hail, sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day. 
On other days, the man of toil is doom'd 
To eat his joyless bread, lonely, the ground 
Both seat and board, screen'd from the winter's cold 
And summer's heat by neighbouring hedge or tree ; 
But on this day, imbosom'd in his home, 
He shares the frugal meal with those he loves ; 
With those he loves he shares his heart-felt joy 
Of giving thanks to God — not thanks of form, 
A word and a grimace, but rev'rently, 
With cover'd face, and upward earnest eye." 

Grahame. 

4. It was designed, in connection with 
bodily rest, to secure to every man time for 
the public and private exercises of religion. 

Where there is no sabbath kept, there is 
no true religion enjoyed, neither any standard 



THE SABBATH. 23 

lifted up against abounding iniquity. There 
Satan reigns ; and man, who was made in 
the image of God, either renounces his 
rationality, and worships idols, or, in the 
spirit of atheism, he frames to himself a 
system of philosophy which transmutes the 
soul into matter, turns providence into 
chance, and blots God out of the universe 
he has made, and on each particle of which 
he has stamped indelible traces of his wis- 
dom, power, and goodness. 

In proportion as the sabbath is desecrated, 
in countries where its divine authority is 
formally acknowledged, the sanctuary of 
God is forsaken, the fervour of piety is 
quenched, the ordinances of religion are 
neglected, the poor are oppressed, the right- 
eous are persecuted, God is forgotten, and 
profligacy corrupts all classes. The history 
of every Popish country in Europe esta- 
blishes the truth of these allegations ; and, 
but for the partial preservation of the spirit 
and principles of the Reformation in this 
land, truth would, long ago, have been 
treated as a fiction, immortality would have 
been regarded as a dream, and the sabbath 



24 THE SABBATH. 

would have been turned into a day of pas- 
time, — on which, field-sports, theatrical 
amusements, card-playing, buying, selling, 
and promenading would have been prac- 
tised by priests and people, high and low, 
young and old. 

The connection which subsists between 
the observance of the sabbath, and the 
maintenance of true religion, by nations, 
families, and individuals, is not accidental, 
but natural ; not partial, but universal ; not 
occasional, but constant. It is a connection 
founded in the nature of things, which har- 
monizes with the physical and spiritual con- 
stitution of man ; and which is confirmed by 
the appointment, and sanctified by the bless- 
ing, of God. Though the sabbath was de- 
signed, in the first instance, to heighten the 
joys of innocence, it was also adapted, and 
prospectively intended, to restrain vice, pre- 
serve truth, and bring God and eternity to 
our remembrance. The most hardened sab- 
bath-breaker can witness, how difficult he 
found it, at the commencement of his career, 
to be wicked while others were worshipping ; 
and to forget God, while the stillness of the 



THE SABBATH. 25 

country, the pealing of the church-going 
bells, the open doors of the sanctuary, and 
the streaming multitude, who went up to the 
house of the Lord — all seemed to say, " O 
come, let us worship and bow down ; let us 
kneel before the Lord our Maker, For he 
is our God, and we are the people of his 
pasture, and the sheep of his hand.' 7 

As there is a time for everything under 
the sun, it was necessary there should be a 
stated day for the worship of God, that the 
universality of the custom might shame par- 
tial dissent, and check individual indifference ; 
that one man's business might not interfere 
with another man's devotion ; and that the 
regular return of the day might correct the 
treachery of the memory, the worldliness of 
the affections, and the alienation of the 
mind. In the sabbatic institution, God con- 
templated our happiness no less than his 
own glory. He made the day 'his, by a 
solemn appropriation, that he might convey 
it back to us, under the guarantee of a divine 
charter, that none might deprive us of its 
rest, without incurring the guilt of robbing 
him of his right. To his command he 



26 THE SABBATH. 

added his example, that the proud might be 
shamed into imitation, or, at least, be deterred 
from disobedience, under the dread of a 
double curse ; that the lowly might be en- 
couraged to obey, under the hope of a great 
reward, and by the influence of a heavenly 
pattern ; and that rich and poor, bond and 
free, learned and illiterate, might have the 
same mighty motives to meet together — at 
the same time, in the same place, on the 
same level — uttering the same penitential 
confessions, supplicating the same blessings, 
and joining in the same ascriptions of praise 
to Him who is above all, and through all, 
and in them all. 

" Solemn the knell, from yonder ancient pile, 
Fills all the air, inspiring joyful awe : 
Slowly the throng moves o'er the tomb-paved ground ; 
The aged man, the bowed down, the blind, 
Led by the thoughtless boy ; and he who breathes 
With pain^and eyes the new-made grave, well-pleased : 
These, mingled with the young, the gay, approach 
The house of God : these, spite of all their ills, 
A glow of gladness feel. With silent praise 
They enter in ; a placid stillness reigns, 
Until the man of God — worthy the name — 
Opens the book, and reverently reads 
The stated portion." Grahame, 



THE SABBATH. 27 

5. To commemorate the redemption of the 
world by our Lord Jesus Christ, and pre- 
figure the rest which remaineth for the people 
of God. 

That the sabbath was not designed to be 
exclusively commemorative of the creation, 
is certain; for, in Deut. v, 15, the deliver- 
ance from Egyptian bondage is assigned as 
an additional reason why the Jews should 
rest themselves, and allow their servants to 
rest also. That deliverance was a type of 
the redemption effected by the death of the 
Lord Jesus ; and if it was the will of God, 
that the shadow should be commemorated, 
how much more that the work itself should 
be held in everlasting remembrance ! By 
the incarnation, death, and resurrection of 
our Lord, a new dispensation was introduced, 
new manifestations of love were vouchsafed, 
and matter for new and unending songs of 
praise was furnished : God then bestowed 
his richest gift, and completed his greatest 
work — a work in which the glory of his 
perfections shone so illustriously, that all 
former displays were cast into the shade. 
There was, therefore, a necessity why his 



28 THE SABBATH. 

people, in their sabbath worship, should dis- 
tinctly adore his love, and utter his praise, 
for having fulfilled his promises, and accom- 
plished his predictions, in raising up " a 
horn of salvation for them in the house of 
David his servant." The Jewish sabbath 
intimated that God was their Maker, and 
that it was he who had brought them out of 
the house of bondage ; but ours proclaims the 
redemption of our whole race ; and by keep- 
ing it, we avow our belief in the love of the 
Father, in the deity of the Son, in the vica- 
rious character of his death, the triumphs of 
his resurrection, and in the eternal "rest 
which remaineth for the people of God." 
Without forgetting or undervaluing the stu- 
pendous work of creation, or the emancipa- 
tion of Israel, the burden of our sabbath songs 
should be, " Blessed be the God and Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according 
to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us 
again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ from the dead." 

Reserving other branches of this great 
subject for future discussion, we trust the 
preceding remarks are sufficient to convince 



THE SABBATH. 29 

our readers, that the design of the sabbath 
was holy and benignant ; that the institution 
itself stands essentially connected with the 
rights of God, and the dearest interests of 
man ; that it is, at once, a guard to truth, 
and a witness against error ; that its sancti- 
fication is equally necessary to the refresh- 
ment of our bodies, and the salvation of our 
souls ; and that we cannot devote it to 
pastime, or to labour, without robbing God, 
without infringing on the rights of others, 
and without wronging our own souls by for- 
feiting the blessings of grace here, and the 
rest of glory hereafter. 



30 THE SABBATH. 

CHAPTER II. 

MORAL OBLIGATION OF THE DAY. 

That branch of the sabbath-question which 
now falls under our consideration, is, the 
moral obligation which we, and all to whom 
the word of God comes, are under, to keep 
the day holy. This may be proved, 

1. By an appeal to the time when the 
sabbath was instituted, and to the general 
character of the reasons assigned for its early 
observance. 

" Thus the heavens and the earth w r ere 
finished, and all the host of them. And on 
the seventh day God ended his work which 
he had made. And God blessed the seventh 
day, and sanctified it ; because that in it he 
had rested from all his work which God 
created and made." Gen. ii, 1-3. Dr. 
Paley and others have employed much 
learned ingenuity to prove, that these words 
are introduced by way of anticipation, to 
secure the order of connection, and to give 
additional weight to the subsequent enact- 
ment at Sinai : in other words, that they do 



THE SABBATH. 31 

not describe what then took place, but what 
God had determined to do two thousand five 
hundred years afterward. But their reason- 
ings are inconclusive ; they contradict the 
obvious meaning of the text ; and are, as we 
think, highly injurious to the interests of 
religion and morality. The laws of God 
stand in no need of rhetorical artifice ; they 
are binding on his creatures from the first 
moment of their promulgation ; and the im- 
press of his authority alone invests them with 
a character of solemnity which human expe- 
dients cannot increase. 

The above account bears on its face such 
evidence of being a real, an original, and a 
consecutive history of what then took place, 
that not one of a thousand common-sense 
readers would ever dream of its being an 
anticipatory parenthesis. Not only is it 
manifestly a part of the history of creation, 
but it bears the same affinity to that history 
which the capital does to a column, which 
the chief corner-stone does to a temple ; for 
it gives majesty and beauty to the whole ; 
and in its polished lines we trace the holi- 
ness, the sovereignty, and the goodness of 



32 THE SABBATH. 

God ; the moral obligation of man, the origin 
of ordinances, and the type of eternal rest. 
The creation of the world, under any circum- 
stances, must have been contemplated as a 
gigantic manifestation of power, and a con- 
summate device of wisdom ; but had it not 
been sanctified by the keeping of a sabbath, 
it would have wanted a character of holiness ; 
and, wanting this, it would have been un- 
worthy of God. 

If we admit, that the sabbath was not in- 
stituted till the time of Moses, it follows, that 
the human race were not only without a 
chartered holy day for the space of two 
thousand five hundred years, but that they 
were left, for this vast period, to worship 
God as often, or rather as seldom, as they 
thought meet. But had this been the fact, 
it is difficult to imagine how they came to 
learn, that to neglect his worship was a sin, 
or that its regular performance was a duty, 
and acceptable in his sight. It appears to 
us a libel on the Most High, to suppose that, 
while he gave rational and immortal man 
instructions respecting the keeping and 
dressing of the garden, the replenishing of 



THE SABBATH. 33 

the earth, and the subduing of the animals, 
he should have left him wholly ignorant of 
the time when, and the reasons why, he 
should evince his gratitude and loyalty, by 
engaging in his worship ; that, while he made 
ample provision for the supply of his bodily 
wants, he should have neglected to institute 
an ordinance essential to the improvement 
of his mind, and the maintenance of fellow- 
ship with himself; and that, though he fore- 
saw our apostacy, the spread of idolatry and 
impiety — though he had determined to re- 
deem, enlighten, and exalt us to his favour 
and image — he, nevertheless, delayed to enact 
the keeping of a sabbath, for the term we 
have specified, though this, above all other 
means, was best calculated to restrain vice, 
preserve truth, promote piety, and carry out 
the designs of redeeming love ! The sup- 
position is impious ; the text, taken in its 
natural and obvious meaning, gives it the 
lie ; and all our conceptions of what became 
the wisdom, grace, and holiness of God, for- 
bid that we should entertain it for a moment. 
No ! the sabbath was not postponed till the 
days of Moses. It was established at the 
3 



34 THE SABBATH, 

birth of time, in the world's infancy, on the 
first entire day of man's existence — before 
his body was wearied with toil, or his soul 
stained with sin ; and, consequently, before 
any ceremonial ordinances existed, or were 
at all necessary. It was, in truth, a part of 
God's original plan ; he was determined not 
to have a world without a sabbath ; for, in 
his estimation, man's privileges and bliss 
were incomplete, till the divine example was 
set, and the royal edict promulgated, which 
required that he should spend each seventh 
day in uninterrupted fellowship with himself. 
The reasons assigned to our first parents, 
for the sanctincation of the sabbath, were of 
a universal and primary character ; and, as 
such, were equally obligatory on them and 
on their posterity. They were, the com- 
memoration of the creation ; the example of 
God; his solemn appointment; and the de- 
pendant circumstances of man. The first 
three are clearly expressed in the text, and 
the latter is plainly implied. " God rested 
on the seventh day from all his work which 
he had made ;" that is, he suspended the 
operations of his creating energy ; not be- 



THE SABBATH, 35 

cause he was weary, nor because lie could 
not have created other works and other 
beings, possessing properties and powers 
widely different from those to which he had 
already given existence ; but because he 
would set man an example of working six 
days, and of resting on the seventh; " God 
blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it :" 
he set it apart from common, for sacred 
uses ; he said, in effect, " It is mine ; and I 
award a special blessing to those who shall* 
on it, imitate my example, revere my ordi- 
nation, and adore me as their Creator and 
sovereign Benefactor." Such were the de- 
signs, and such the will, of God respecting 
the sanctification of the sabbath. Now, we 
argue, that if our first parents, in their ori- 
ginal state, were bound to copy the example, 
to reverence the appointments, and to use 
the means of grace which their sovereign 
Creator instituted, for the confirmation of 
their happiness, and for the increase of their 
knowledge ; that if they were obligated to 
meditate on the works of his hands, to adore 
the perfections of his nature, to praise him 
for his creating and preserving goodness, 



36 THE SABBATH. 

and to testify their love by obedience to his 
will ; then we, also, are bound to do the 
same, seeing we are not only his workman- 
ship, and the objects of his providential care, 
but also the purchase of the blood of his 
only-begotten Son, and the objects of his 
long-suffering goodness. If our first parents 
stood in need of a weekly rest, and of a 
seventh day for contemplation and worship, 
though they lived in the paradise of an un- 
fallen world, though they were possessed of 
intuitive knowledge, and though, in their 
approaches to God, they had only to adore, 
to love, and to praise ; how much more do 
we, who live in a world blighted by the 
curse, who have to eat our bread by the 
sweat of our brow, who know not how to 
order our speech, by reason of the darkness 
that is in us, and who, to other branches of 
duty, have to add confession of sin, depre- 
cation of merited wrath, resistance to the 
flesh, and a laborious search after truth ! 
Thus, whether we consider the time when 
the sabbath was instituted, the primary rea- 
sons for its sanctification, the relations we 
sustain to its great Author, the blessings we 



THE SABBATH. o7 

have received at his hand, or our general 
circumstances of peril, and of pressing ne- 
cessity ; we are as clearly and as fully bound 
to keep it holy, as were Adam and Eve. 
Yes ! the sabbath was made for man, in his 
fallen and unfallen condition, in his regene- 
rate and unregenerate state, in all the ages 
of his existence, in all the variety of his cir- 
cumstances, and in all the lands where his 
lot may be cast ; and nothing but ignorance, 
involuntary ignorance, can excuse us, if we 
neglect to keep it holy. Instead, therefore, of 
cavilling with the ordinance, or endeavouring 
to evade its obligation, let us revere it for its 
antiquity, love it for its benignity, and sanctify 
it in obedience to the authority, and in imi- 
tation of the example, of its great Author. 
Our obligation to keep the sabbath holy may 
be proved, 

2. From the moral law, which expressly 
enjoins its observance. 

It might have been anticipated, that Paley, 
and the writers at whose head he stands, 
after having attempted to invalidate the pri- 
mitive institution of the sabbath, would have 
strenuously maintained its perpetual and uni- 



38 THE SABBATH. 

versal obligation, on the ground, that its 
sanctification is commanded in the moral 
law. But, instead of this, they have labour- 
ed to prove, that, though found in the deca- 
logue, it is really a part of the Jewish cere- 
monial ; and is binding on us only by human 
and conventional considerations. But, " My 
counsel shall stand, saith the Lord ; and I 
will do all my pleasure." A part of his 
" counsel" and " pleasure," most certainly, 
is, that we should " remember the sabbath- 
day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou 
labour, and do all thy work : but the seventh 
day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God : in 
it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy 
son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, 
nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy 
stranger that is within thy gates. For in 
six days the Lord made heaven and earth, 
the sea, and all that in them is, and rested 
the seventh day : wherefore the Lord blessed 
the sabbath-day, and hallowed it." 

The ten commandments were clearly dis- 
tinguished from all ritual enactments and 
ceremonies whatsoever, by the following 
circumstances : — First. The ceremonial law 



THE SABBATH. 39 

was given by the ordinary methods of in- 
spiration ; whereas God spake all the words 
of the moral law with his own lips, in the 
audience of all the people, accompanied by 
such signs of majesty, that even Moses said, 
" I exceedingly fear and quake ;" and the 
people entreated that the words might not be 
spoken to them again, lest they should die. 
Secondly. The ceremonial law was written 
by Moses on parchment, or some such 
perishable material ; but God wrote the 
moral law, with his own finger, on tables of 
stone. Thirdly. The ceremonial law was 
placed by the side of the ark, and might, at 
any time, have been removed ; but the tables 
of stone, which contained the moral law, 
were laid up within the ark, in token of its 
superior excellence, and of God's supreme 
concern for its preservation. Fourthly. To 
show its everlasting connection and harmony 
with the economy of grace, it was sprinkled 
with blood, covered with the mercy-seat, 
overshadowed with cherubim, and enshrined 
with the shechinah, or " glory of the Lord."/ 
By these extraordinary circumstances, a 
broad line of demarkation was established 



40 THE SABBATH. 

between it and the Jewish ritual : and the 
sabbath law, standing, as it does, in the 
centre of the decalogue, serves as a seal to 
the first table, and as a guard to the second ; 
an arrangement which seems to imply, that, 
in the divine estimation, its perpetuity and 
due observance are essential to the preserva- 
tion of the whole law, and to the perform- 
ance of the duties of both tables. 

Dr. Paley endeavours to overthrow the 
argument in favour of the moral obligation 
of the sabbath, drawn from the fact of its 
incorporation with the decalogue, by plead- 
ing that, in several passages of Scripture, 
ceremonial, political, and positive duties are 
blended with others which are moral, and, 
consequently, universally binding. But we 
need only reply to this, that not one of the 
passages he adduces was written by the 
finger of God on tables of stone, or was 
spoken by God in the hearing of all the 
people, or was deposited in the ark, or was 
overshadowed with the cherubim and the 
glory. None of them constituted what God 
and his church have called " the law," " the 
two tables of the law," " the ten command- 



THE SABBATH. 41 

merits ;" and though we fully admit their 
inspiration, yet neither Christ nor his apos- 
tles ever recognised any of them as com- 
plete summaries of duty, which they often 
did as to the moral law. 

In conducting his anti-sabbatic argument, 
Dr. Paley adverts to the temporal penalties, 
and Jewish restrictions, which were ap- 
pended to the law of the sabbath ; and 
argues, that, because we are not subject to 
them, neither are we bound by the law to 
which they were subjoined. But, by a 
similar mode of arguing, the infidel might 
neutralize and invalidate every precept in 
the two tables. The Jewish government was 
a theocracy — God was their King ; and the 
moral law formed the basis of their national 
polity. Hence heavy temporal penalties 
were annexed to the worshipping of idols, 
to the taking of the name of God in vain, to 
disobedience to parents, as well as to the 
violation of the sabbath ; and various cere- 
monial and political arrangements were made 
for the detection of murder, adultery, theft, 
and the bearing of false witness, which are 
not obligatory on us as Christians. If, there- 



42 THE SABBATH. 

fore, the fourth commandment is to be 
reckoned ceremonial, because it was guard- 
ed by temporal penalties, and political re- 
strictions, then they are all ceremonial ; if it 
has been abrogated, then they have all been 
abrogated ; and if so, it follows, that there 
is no divine code of laws in the Bible ; and 
if not in the Bible, certainly not in the 
world ; consequently, man is without law, 
the distinction between right and wrong is 
arbitrary, and our terrors of conscience are 
unnecessary ; for the doctrines of human 
responsibility, and of eternal rewards and 
punishments, are, on this hypothesis, idle 
dreams. These, we maintain, are the legi- 
timate consequences of the theory which 
stamps this commandment with a ceremo- 
nial character. But we reject the theory, 
and we abhor its consequences. 

" Though the appointment of the seventh 
day, as distinguished from other days, be of 
a positive character, yet the law itself is 
intimately, perhaps essentially, connected 
with several moral principles of homage to 
God, and mercy to men ; with the obliga- 
tion of religious worship, of public religious 



THE SABBATH, 43 

worship, and of undistracted public worship : 
and this will account for its collocation in 
the decalogue with the highest duties of re- 
ligion, and the leading rules of personal and 
social morality. Our Lord Jesus declares, I 
that he 'came not to destroy the law and 
the prophets, but to fulfil.' Take it that, by 
' the law,' he meant both the moral and the 
ceremonial : ceremonial law could only be 
fulfilled in him, by realizing its types ; and 
moral law, by upholding its authority. For 
' the prophets,' they admit of a similar dis- 
tinction : they either enjoin morality, or utter 
prophecies of Christ ; the latter of which 
were fulfilled in the sense of accomplish- 
ment, the former by being sanctioned and 
enforced. The apostle, in answer to an ob- 
jection to the .doctrine of justification by faith, 
asks, ' Do we then make void the law through 
faith?' Rom. iii, 31 ; which is equivalent to 
asking, Does Christianity teach that the law 
is no longer obligatory on Christians, because 
it teaches that no man can be justified by it ? 
To which he answers, in the most solemn 
form of expression, ■ God forbid ; yea, we 
establish the law.' Now, the sense in which 



44 THE SABBATH. 

the apostle uses the term, ' the law,' in this 
argument, is indubitably marked in Rom. vii, 
7, ' I had not known sin, but by the law : 
for I had not known lust, except the law had 
said, Thou shalt not covet:' which, being. a 
plain reference to the tenth command of the 
decalogue, is • the law' of which he speaks, 
This, then, is the law which is established 
by the gospel ; and this can mean nothing 
else but the establishment and confirmation 
of its authority, as the rule of all inward and 
outward holiness. Whoever, therefore, de- 
nies the obligation of the sabbath on Chris- 
tians, denies the obligation of the whole 
decalogue ; and there is no real medium be- 
tween the acknowledgment of the divine 
authority of this sacred institution, as a uni- 
versal law, and that gross corruption of 
Christianity, generally designated Antino- 
mianism."* We plead the moral obligation 
of the sabbath, 

3. From the example of the church and 
people of God in all ages. 

That our first parents kept the sabbath in 
paradise, is certain ; for such was the will 
* Watson's Theo. Diet., article, Sabbath. 



THE SABBATH. 45 

of God concerning them ; and we know that, 
for one day at least, they must have perfectly 
served his pleasure. That they sanctified it, 
after their fall, and expulsion from paradise, 
may be confidently inferred, from their peni- 
tence, from the Scripture intimations tve have 
of their restoration to the favour of God, as 
well as from what is said in Gen. iv, 3, as 
to the time w T hen Cain and Abel presented 
their offerings to the Lord. In the text we 
read, " And in process of time it came to 
pass, that Cain," &c. ; but in the margin it 
reads, " At the end of days Cain," &c, — a 
mode of expression used in other parts of the 
Old Testament* to denote the expiration of a 
measured term. As, therefore, one of the 
earliest, simplest, and most sacred divisions 
of time was that into weeks, it may be pre- 
sumed, that these brethren presented their 
offerings on the day that the Lord had hal- 
lowed. This opinion is strengthened, if we 
suppose, with Dr. Kennicott, that it was 
then their father invested them with the 
right of sacrificing • and that this was the 
first instance in which they offered on God's 
altar, in their own name, and in behalf of 



46 THE SABBATH. 

their respective households. Such a service 
must have been felt to be peculiarly solemn ; 
and, in the absence of all other sacred days, 
the day which the Lord had blessed, and 
sanctified by his example, was doubtless 
chosen for its performance. 

That the sabbath was sanctified by the 
patriarchs and their families may be inferred 
from the general fidelity with which they 
served God, and maintained his worship in 
the world ; from the import of those eulogies 
which God bestowed upon them ; (Gen. v, 
22-24 ; vi, 8, 9 ; vii, 1 ; xviii, 19 ; xxvi, 5 ; 
2 Peter ii, 7, 8;) and from the repeated 
references, in their memoirs, to the division 
of time into weeks, and the almost worship- 
ful respect which they, and the nations of 
antiquity, paid to the number seven. The 
history of the flood demonstrates, that Noah, 
by God's direction, regulated all his official 
acts, in connection with this dreadful catas- 
trophe, by a strict reference to the seventh 
day. And we ask, What possible reason 
can be assigned for the studied respect which 
was thus paid to it, if its sabbatic character 
be denied ? And by what other means could 



THE SABBATH, 47 

it have been distinguished from the other 
days of the week, through the lapse of two 
thousand five hundred years, except by its 
regular consecration to the worship of God f 
On this supposition, the problem is satisfac- 
torily solved ; but on every other it is utterly 
inexplicable. 

We concede^ that the Scriptures do not 
make express mention of the sabbath, from 
the time of its first institution up to the days 
of Moses. But if this silence be admitted 
as evidence that it was forgotten and disre- 
garded during the whole of this period, we 
must further admit, that it was forgotten and 
disregarded throughout the reign of the 
Judges, including the administrations of holy 
Samuel, and of regal Saul ; for in all this 
period (about six hundred years) it is not 
once named. Dr* D wight has proved, that 
there are only five passages in the Scrip- 
tures in which the sabbath is mentioned, as 
distinguished from other holy days, from the 
time of Moses to the return of the Jews from 
Babylon, being a period of one thousand 
years ; and he concludes his argument in 
these words : — " Now, let me ask, can any 



48 THE SABBATH. 

person wonder, that, in an account so sum- 
mary as the history of the patriarchs, there 
should be no mention of the sabbath ; when 
it is considered, that, in the space of a thou- 
sand years — during which period the Jews 
existed both as a nation and a church, with 
kings to rule them, and prophets to teach 
them; and historians and poets to record and 
immortalize their wars and religious services 
— it is mentioned only five times ?" 

That the sabbath was sanctified by the 
Israelites, before the law was given from 
Sinai, is evident from Exod. xvi, 22-28 ; 
where we learn, that on the sixth day after 
the manna had begun to fall, the people, of 
their own accord, and in apparent contra- 
diction of the words of Moses, " gathered 
twice as much bread, two omers for one 
man, 5 ' as they had done on the five preced- 
ing mornings. Their rulers, doubtful whe- 
ther they had done right, came to Moses for 
direction ; and he said, " This is that which 
the Lord hath said, Bake that which ye will 
bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe ; 
and that which remaineth over lay up for you 
to be kept until the morning. And they laid 



THE SABBATH. 49 

it up till the morning, as Moses bade : and 
it did not stink, neither was there any worm 
therein. And Moses said, Eat that to-day ; 
for to-day is a sabbath unto the Lord: to- 
day ye shall not find it in the field. Six 
days ye shall gather it ; but on the seventh 
day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall 
be none." From this history it is manifest* 
first, that the sabbath was sanctified by the 
Israelites at least two months before the law 
was delivered from Sinai ; and that the peo- 
ple prepared for its sanctification before they 
received any instructions to that effect from 
their rulers. Secondly. That Moses vindi- 
cated the preparatory arrangements which 
the people had made, though they were 
contrary to the literal import of one of his 
own general instructions ; and he did this, 
not by announcing the law of the sabbath in 
form, with the reasons for its sanctification 
in detail, as if newly revealed ; but simply 
by recognising the fact, that the morrow was 
a holy sabbath unto the Lord. Thirdly. 
That God, instead of punishing them for 
introducing novelties into his worship, testi- 
fied his approbation of their conduct, by 
4 



50 THE SABBATHc 

giving them, in continuance, a double por- 
tion of manna on the sixth day — by preserv- 
ing their sabbath portion sweet, and free 
from worms — and by denouncing the attempt 
to gather it on the sabbath, as a refusal, on 
their part, to keep his commandments and 
laws. Thus, it is plainly proved, that the 
sabbath was known and observed before the 
moral law was promulgated, or the ceremo- 
nial existed in its Mosaic form : and this of 
itself is fatal to the whole* of Dr. Paley's 
argument, as he himself admits. " If the 
divine command was actually delivered at 
the creation, it was addressed, no doubt, to 
the whole human species alike ; and con- 
tinues, unless repealed by some subsequent 
revelation, binding upon all who come to the 
knowledge of it." And he afterward adds : 
"The former opinion" (namely, that the 
sabbath was instituted at the creation) "pre- 
cludes all debate about the extent of the obli- 
gation."* 

That the Jews kept the sabbath, with more 
or less strictness, according to the degree of 
their fidelity in the service of God, after 

* Moral Philosophy. 



THE SABBATH. 51 

their settlement in Canaan, is not questioned 
by any. In the days of their degeneracy, it 
was indeed extensively violated ; but its 
violation brought down the judgments of 
God, and the stern rebukes of their prophets. 
Their daily sacrifices were doubled on this 
day, and all their annual festivals recognised 
its permanent sanctity. Nehemiah, and other 
reformers, laboured to restore it to its original 
purity ; and some of God's richest promises 
w 7 ere given on the express condition, that 
they should turn away their foot from pro- 
faning it, and should call it " a delight." In 
the days of the Redeemer, they were super- 
stitiously exact in every thing relating to its 
outward rest. He called himself " the Lord 
of the sabbath ;" he went, as he was wont, 
into the synagogue on the sabbath-day ; he 
taught his disciples to pray, that their flight 
from the impending destruction of Jerusalem 
might not be on the sabbath-day— -implying 
that, in his estimation, the want of its rest 
and ordinances would vastly enhance the 
distress of that day, a day of dire calamity. 
And though his disciples, after his resurrec- 
tion, transferred the festival to the first day 



52 THE SABBATH. 

of the week, (for reasons to be afterward 
adduced,) yet they sacredly, and at great 
risk, consecrated to God a seventh part of 
their time. Ignatius, a companion of the 
apostles ; Justin Martyr, who lived at the 
close of the first century ; Irenaeus, a con- 
temporary with Polycarp, the disciple of St. 
John ; together with Tertullian, and all the 
early fathers, declare that the Christians kept 
the sabbath, but that they kept it on the first 
day of the week. 

Thus the concurrent testimony of history 
bears us out, when we say, that exalted 
piety, whether national or personal, has been 
invariably characterized by a reverential re- 
gard for the sanctity of the sabbath ; and 
that declension in religion has been as regu- 
larly marked by its desecration. If, then, 
the sovereign appointments of God ought to 
be reverenced ; if his glorious works ought 
to be commemorated ; if his gracious designs 
ought to be respected ; if his promises ought 
to be valued, and his threatenings feared ; if 
his commandments ought to be obeyed ; and 
if his example, and the example of his in- 
carnate Son, together with that of patriarchs, 



THE SABBATH. 53 

prophets, apostles, martyrs, and saints, ought 
to be imitated ; then we are hound to keep 
the sabbath holy ; and we cannot profane it 
without identifying ourselves with his ene- 
mies, trampling his goodness under foot, and 
setting his authority and his judgments at 
defiance. 

" Thine earthly sabbaths, Lord, we love, 
But there's a nobler rest, above : 
Thy servants to that rest aspire 
With ardent hope and strong desire, 

There languor shall no more oppress ; 
The heart shall feel no more distress ; 
No groans shall mingle with the songs 
That dwell upon immortal tongues. 

No gloomy cares shall there annoy, 
No conscious guilt disturb our joy ; 
But every doubt and fear shall cease, 
And perfect love give perfect peace." 



54 THE SABBATH. 



CHAPTER III. 

ITS CHANGE FROM THE SEVENTH^TO THE FIRST 
DAY IN THE WEEK. 

Infidels and Jews are not more forward 
to charge us with having made this change, 
than we are to admit that it did take place. 
Indeed, we regard it as a fact of considerable 
importance, in proving the divinity of our 
holy religion, that, from the time of our Re- 
deemer's resurrection, his disciples comme- 
morated that event by a weekly sabbath. But 
while we admit, and even rejoice in, the 
change of the day, we deny that any change 
took place in the festival itself, except it was 
that of being " changed from glory to glory." 
The apostles neither abrogated it, as if it 
were useless ; nor abridged it, as if it were 
too long ; nor secularized it, asr if it were too 
spiritual ; nor did they weaken its moral 
obligation, as if it were too binding. They 
only transferred it from the seventh to the 
first day of the week : and by thus conjoin- 
ing the new creation with the old, and the 
rest of God our Maker with that of God our 



THE SABBATH. 55 

Saviour, they invested the day with ad- 
ditional interest, and made its grateful ob- 
servance more binding on the hearts and 
consciences of our ransomed race. This 
transfer, we conceive, was no way incon- 
sistent either with the original design of the 
institution, or with the spirit of the fourth 
commandment. Its chief design was, the 
commemoration of the creation of the world 
by Jehovah, in the space of six days; and 
the spirit of the commandment requires that, 
after six days' labour, we should dedicate 
the seventh to the worship of God. As, 
therefore, the sabbath still returns after six 
days' toil, the same truth is taught, and the 
same end is as fully secured, as though it 
had continued to be solemnized on the very 
seventh day from the creation. 

It will be readily admitted, that the seventh 
day had no inherent sanctity in itself ; that it 
became a holy day simply because " God 
blessed and sanctified it ;" hence the marked 
distinction which is made between the sab- 
bath, and the day on which it was kept : 
" Remember the sabbath-day," not the 
seventh day, " to keep it holy." And 



56 THE SABBAT'S. 

again : " Wherefore God blessed the sab- 
bath-day, and hallowed it." It was r there- 
fore, the blessing and the hallowing example 
of God which constituted the essence and 
efficacy of the sabbath : and these being, 
for the time, identified with the seventh day, 
it was called " the sabbath," and was sancti- 
fied as such by the Old-Testament church. 
In the last chapter of the book of Nehemiah, 
this holy day is referred to nine times ; and 
in no one instance is it called the seventh 
day, but invariably the " sabbath," or the 
" sabbath-day." And in all the other pas- 
sages where it is mentioned, whether in the 
Old or New Testament — excepting those in 
which the creation, or some Jewish observ- 
ance, is spoken of — it bears the same desig- 
nation. Now, from this studied, and almost 
uniform, substitution of the proper name for 
the number of the day, we draw this general 
inference ; namely, that the keeping of the 
sabbath, or sacred rest, on the seventh day, 
was a mere circumstance connected with its 
sanctification, wisely ordered at the first, and 
binding on man while the appointment con- 
tinued in force ; but which was alterable at 



THE SABBATH, 57 

the will of God, and not essentia} to the 
sanctity or blessedness of the sabbath itself. 
That the keeping of the seventh day, from 
the creation, was not essential to the sancti- 
fication of the sabbath, is certain ; for, in 
consequence of the diurnal motion of the 
earth on its own axis, our hemisphere is 
shrouded in darkness while the light of day 
irradiates the other ; so that we are only 
beginning our sabbath w T hen the Orientals 
have concluded theirs. Not only so, but the 
regular succession of time into days of 
twenty-four hours each was interrupted by 
God himself in the time of Joshua. That 
great captain, moved by the Spirit of inspi- 
ration, said, in the sight of Israel, " Sun, 
stand thou still upon Gibeon ; and thou, 
moon, in the valley of Ajalon.' 5 "And the 
sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until 
the people had avenged themselves upon 
their enemies. So the sun stood still, and 
hasted not to go down about a whole day. 
And there was no day like that before it or 
after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the 
voice of a man : for the Lord fought for 
Israel ." Josh, x, 12-14. As to the mode of 



58 THE SABBATH. 

this miracle, we say nothing ; but the fact is 
declared, that, through the special intervention 
of Jehovah, the light of that day was super- 
naturally prolonged to nearly twice its ordi- 
nary length ; and, consequently, the follow- 
ing sabbath was displaced to the same ex- 
tent. While we adduce these facts, in proof 
that the sanctity of the sabbath did not depend 
on its exact identification with the seventh 
day, we repeat, that the appointment to keep 
it on that day was obligatory upon man 
while it was matter of divine injunction ; for 
none may presume to alter even those parts 
of God's worship which are circumstantial, 
without his authority. This leads us to 
state the grounds on which we rest our be- 
lief, that the change in question was not 
made by man, but by him who is both God 
and man, in one person, for ever ; who is 
" Lord of the sabbath ;" and " Head over all 
things to the church, which is his body ; the 
fulness of Him who filleth all in all." In 
proof of this we plead, 

1. Prophetic intimations that such a 
change was contemplated. 

We have showed above, that the law of 



THE SABBATH. 59 

the sabbath clearly distinguishes between 
the festival itself, and the day on which it 
was held. Now, we would ask, why was 
this distinction made, when, by the alteration 
of a few simple terms, the retaining of the 
day might have been made essential to the 
keeping of the sabbath in all countries, and 
in every age ? When every form of speech 
was present to the mind of the divine Law- 
giver, and when he foreknew, with absolute 
certainty, that his people would, under the 
new dispensation, transfer the sabbath from 
the seventh to~ the first day of the week, 
why was no guard thrown in to prevent such 
a transfer ? Why, but because God willed 
that it should take place. He contemplated 
it from the beginning, as being, in itself, wise 
and beneficial ; and as being called for by 
the superior glory of the work of redemption ; 
and that there might be no discrepance be- 
tween the requirements of his law, and the 
institutions of his gospel, he adopted that 
mode of expression which, of all others, was 
best calculated to suggest, to men of a dis- 
tant generation, that the change of the day 
was an open question — that the sabbath was 



60 THE SABBATH. 

not essentially connected with the seventh 
day — that when the proper time should ar- 
rive, there was no bar in the decalogue to the 
substitution of the first day, as commemora- 
tive of our redemption, and the new creation 
to which it gave birth. 

Psalm cxviii is called, by Bishop Home, 
" a triumphal hymn, sung by King Messiah, 
at the head of the Israel of God, on occasion 
of his resurrection and exaltation." These 
glorious events, and the day on which they 
were to be commemorated, are referred to 
in the following words : — " The stone which 
the builders refused, is become the head- 
stone of the corner. This is the Lord's 
doing ; it is marvellous in our eyes. This 
is the day which the Lord hath made ; we 
will rejoice and be glad in it." This passage 
is quoted six times in the New Testament, 
as applicable to the Lord Jesus, and to him 
only. The rejection he suffered from " the 
builders" — the chief priests and rulers of the 
Jews — was consummated on the cross : for, 
by dooming him to that ignominious death, 
they not only denied him as the Son of God, 
and the Saviour of the world, but they loaded 



THE SABBATH. 61 

him with the nation's curse, and did their 
utmost to bury his person, his claims, his 
memory, and his cause, in the rubbish of a 
dishonoured grave. But he took the wise in 
their own craftiness ; and, by means of that 
very death, "he destroyed death, and him 
that had the power of death ; that is, the 
devil :" and through his resurrection, which 
followed, he was declared to be " the Son of 
God with power," " the Hope of Israel," 
" the Desire of all nations," " the Messiah," 
and " the Head-stone of the corner" of God's 
spiritual temple. Now, the day, on which 
this rejected Stone was exalted, the Lord is 
said to have made ; not literally, (for in this 
sense he made all days,) but metaphorically. 
By choosing it as the day on which death 
and hell should be vanquished, by consecrat- 
ing it to his worship, and by appointing that 
it should be the sabbath of his New-Testa- 
ment church, he made it illustrious, he 
raised it above all other days ; and, by 
associating it with those glorious services, 
triumphs, recollections, and anticipations, 
which the cross exhibits and sanctions, he 
rendered it a day of power and of grace to 



62 THE SABBATH, 

the world. The psalmist not only foretells 
the happiness which the resurrection should 
occasion, but the joy and gladness which his 
people should take in " the day" on which it 
should be accomplished ; for he introduces 
them as saying, " This is the day which the 
Lord hath made ; we will be glad and re- 
joice in itP That it was to be a day of 
public worship, is apparent from the royal 
commission to "open the gates of righteous- 
ness ; this gate of the Lord, into which the 
righteous," of all lands, " shall enter;" from 
the Church's prayer for present and abound- 
ing prosperity, "Save now, I beseech thee, 
O Lord ! Lord, I beseech thee, send now 
prosperity ;" from the praise ascribed to 
" Him that cometh in the name of the 
Lord ;" as well as from the blessing which 
his people are represented as receiving " out 
of the house of the Lord" — the new light 
showed to them by the Lord — producing an 
increase of zeal in sacrificing, confirmed con- 
fidence in God, as their God, and rapturous 
praise because "his mercy endureth for 
ever." 

In Isaiah lxv, 17, 18, the prophet pre- 



THE SABBATH, 63 

diets, that a time would come, when the 
work of redemption would be commemo- 
rated in surpassing preference to the work 
of creation. " Behold, I create new heavens 
and a new earth : and the former shall not 
come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice 
in that which I create : for, behold, I create 
Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." 
That this passage relates to the church mili- 
tant, in her New-Testament estate, is evi- 
dent from what is said in the context con- 
cerning death, answers to prayer, and the 
blessings of temporal prosperity. In Heb. 
ii, 5 ; vi, 5, the New-Testament economy is 
called " the world to come ;" and in the book 
of Revelation, the church is often called 
" heaven," in opposition to the secular and 
persecuting governments of the earth. What 
the prophet describes as " new heavens and 
a new earth," is explained as being accom- 
plished in the creating " Jerusalem a rejoic- 
ing, and her people a joy." In other words, 
it is here predicted, that, through the re- 
demption and reign of Christ, the New-Tes- 
tament church shall be so adorned with holi- 
ness, and so enriched with gifts and heavenly 



64 THE SABBATH. 

influences, that she shall become an occasion 
of universal rejoicing ; and that her renovat- 
ing and joyous agency shall render the world 
a kind of paradise, as compared with its 
former alien, warlike, miserable, and un- 
evangelized state. This change is called 
" a new creation ;" and it is predicted, that 
the former creation shall not " come into 
mind ;" that is, in Hebrew phraseology, 
shall be remembered less, x>r commemorated 
only as an inferior event. " This passage," 
says Dr. Dwight, " appears to me to place 
the fact in the clearest light— that a parti- 
cular, superior, and extraordinary commemo- 
ration of the work of redemption, by the 
Christian church, in all its various ages, w T as 
a part of the good pleasure of God, and was 
designed by him to be accomplished in the 
course of his providence. But there neither 
is, nor ever was, any public, solemn comme- 
moration of this work by the Christian 
church, except that which is holden on the 
first day of the week, or the day in which 
Christ completed this great work by his re- 
surrection from the dead. This prophecy 
has, therefore, been unfulfilled, so far as I 



THE SABBATH. 65 

can see, unless it has been fulfilled in this 
very manner. But if it has been fulfilled in 
this manner, then this manner of fulfilling it 
has been agreeable to the true intention of 
the prophecy, and to the good pleasure of 
God expressed in it; and is, therefore, that 
very part of his providence which is here 
unfolded to mankind."* Other prophetic 
intimations might be quoted ; but the above 
will suffice to show that the change harmo- 
nizes with the analogy of revealed truth. 

2, We plead New-Testament evidence, 
in proof that the change was made with the 
approbation, and by the will, of our Lord. 

It was on the first day of the week that 
our Lord finished the term of his humiliation, 
rose from the dead, and entered into that 
state of meritorious and triumphant repose 
which he now inherits. This was not acci- 
dental ; and it would be blasphemy to in- 
sinuate, that it was done either in contempt 
of the divine example, or in deliberate disre- 
gard of the divine law. No ! Like every 
other event connected with his spotless life 
and atoning death, it was the result of a pre- 
* System of Theology, 



66 THE SABBATH. 

ordination ; it " so seemed good in the sight" 
of the eternal Father. Pilate had no power 
over him for arrest, or for condemnation, ex- 
cept as it was given him from above. He 
himself had power to lay down his life, and 
he had power to take it up again ; yet he 
remained in the grave the whole of the Jewish 
sabbath. He postponed his triumph over 
death and hell ; he left his disciples to weep 
and lament, and suffered his enemies to re- 
joice, till the morning of the first day ; and 
then he took to him his great power — came 
forth from the grave, leading " captivity cap- 
tive" — and, appearing to his disciples, he 
turned their sorrow into joy. Now, if we 
admit that our Lord intended to honour the 
first day above the Jewish sabbath — to iden- 
tify it with his resurrection, to endear it to 
the affections, and embalm it in the grateful 
recollections, of his disciples — we have ade- 
quate reasons for his conduct ; but by no 
other theory can it be satisfactorily ex- 
plained. 

It was on the first day of the week that 
the Redeemer comforted his disciples with 
his royal "Peace be unto you!" that he 



THE SABBATH. 67 

" expounded to them in all the Scriptures 
the things concerning himself;" " opened 
their understandings, that they might under- 
stand the Scriptures ;" made himself " known 
unto them in the breaking of bread ;" "breath- 
ed on them, saying, Receive ye the Holy 
Ghost;" instructed them in "the things 
pertaining to the kingdom of God ;" and on 
this day, too, he commissioned them to 
preach " repentance and remission of sins 
in his name among all nations, beginning at 
Jerusalem." His studied preference for the 
first day was strikingly evinced in his con- 
duct toward Thomas. That disciple was 
not with his brethren when Jesus showed 
himself on the day of his resurrection ; and 
though " the other disciples said unto him, 
We have seen the Lord," he rejected their 
testimony, saying, " Except I shall see in 
his hands the print of the nails, and put my 
finger into the print of the nails, and thrust 
my hand into his side, I will not believe." 
This was daring unbelief; and, besides ex- 
posing himself to great risk, it was likely, at 
that critical juncture, to endanger the faith 
of others : yet the Lord Jesus allowed the 



68 THE SABBATH, 

week to elapse, and the Jewish sabbath to 
pass away, before he afforded him the desired 
demonstration. " After eight days again his 
disciples were within, and Thomas with 
them ; then came Jesus, the doors being 
shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace 
be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, 
Reach hither thy finger, and behold my 
hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and 
thrust it into my side ; and be not faithless, 
but believing. And Thomas answered and 
said, My Lord and my God." This solemn 
scene, it should be observed, not only took 
place on the first day of the second week, 
but the meeting was the first general meet- 
ing which the disciples had held since the 
preceding " first day." This is intimated in 
these words : " After eight days again his 
disciples were within ;" or, " After eight 
days his disciples were again within." 
Taking this circumstance into account, to- 
gether with the fulness of the assembly, and 
the absence of all signs of terror and sur- 
prise, when the Lord appeared in the midst 
of them, we think it more than probable, 
that the disciples met, on this occasion, by 



THE SABBATH, 69 

his appointment, and under a promise that 
he would manifest himself to them. 

It is worthy of remark, that though the 
disciples, no doubt, attended the temple and 
synagogue services, on the Jewish sabbaths 
which intervened between his resurrection 
and ascension, the Redeemer did not once 
appear to them while they were so employ- 
ed ; but his visits, in every instance, were 
vouchsafed when they were met apart, as 
his disciples, and " with the doors shut for 
fear of the Jews," or when " they communed 
together and reasoned" by the way concern- 
ing his tragic death and glorious resurrection. 
From the whole it is undeniable, that the 
Lord Jesus gave a marked preference to the 
first day of the week ; and if he meant 
thereby to encourage his disciples to sepa- 
rate themselves from the ceremonial and un- 
evangelical worship of the Jews, to comme- 
morate his resurrection by a weekly sabbath, 
and also to assure them of his blessing and 
presence, while they did so— his conduct 
was wise, gracious, and intelligible. Where- 
as, if we deny that such were his intentions, 
and suppose that, on the contrary, it was his 



70 THE SABBATH. 

sovereign will the seventh-day sabbath should 
have continued, then his whole procedure 
was unwise, unintelligible, and calculated to 
mislead and perplex his half-informed dis- 
ciples. This his love forbade, and his wis- 
dom rendered impossible. The conclusion, 
therefore, is inevitable, that it was his good 
pleasure that his disciples should transfer 
the sabbath festival from the seventh to the 
first day of the week. 

That the apostles and primitive Christians 
so interpreted his conduct, is proved by their 
uniform practice ; which was, to meet to- 
gether, for religious purposes, " on the first 
day of the week'*— a clear instance of which 
is given in connection w r ith the effusion of 
the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. 
The feast of pentecost was invariably cele- 
brated on the fiftieth day from the passover ; 
and, computing from the Friday on which 
" Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us," 
we find that the feast that year fell on the 
seventh first day in succession ; and we 
read, that " when the day of Pentecost was 
fully come, they" (the disciples) " were all 
with one accord in one place." That they 



fHE SABBATH. 71 

were not met to celebrate the Jewish feast, 
after the Jewish form, is certain ; for none 
but disciples were present ; and the sole 
exercise in which they were engaged, when 
the Holy Ghost came down, was that of 
social prayer. This, then, was their sab- 
bath ; and the baptism of the Spirit which 
they received, in answer to their joint sup- 
plication, offered up in the name of their 
risen Saviour, may properly be viewed as 
the affixing of the divine seal to the change 
of the day ; and as constituting the reward 
for that courageous faith which led them so 
early, and so openly, to withdraw from the 
abrogated feasts of Judaism. 

It was on the first day of the week the 
disciples at Troas came together to " break 
bread," and to hear Paul preach. Acts xx, 7. 
It appears, from the context, that the apostle 
spent seven days at Troas, and, consequent- 
ly, was there on the Jewish sabbath ; but 
no mention is made of any meeting of the 
church on that day; or, indeed, on any 
other, till the first day arrived ; and then he 
sanctified it with them, by administering the 
Lord's supper, and by preaching, till mid- 



72 THE SABBATH". 

night. It was on this day, too, that the 
Christians at Corinth, and in all the region 
of Galatia, assembled to worship God. 1 Cor. 
xvi, 1, 2. Hence the apostle Paul directed 
that the collection for "the poor saints at 
Jerusalem" should be made when they were 
so assembled. Among the Jews, the giving 
of alms, and the casting of gifts into the 
treasury, were reckoned appropriate sabbath- 
day duties ; and as the first day had taken 
precedence of the seventh in the Christian 
church, the apostle taught the disciples to 
connect the exercise of benevolence with its 
sanctification, that in all things it might have 
the pre-eminence. By this arrangement, 
their convenience was not only met, but the 
day was honoured ; their alms were made 
a part of their worship, a tribute of gratitude 
to their Lord, and an expressive memorial 
of brotherly love to their fellow-saints. 

In Rev. i, 10, St. John calls the first day, 
" the Lord's day." " I was in the Spirit on 
the Lord's day." This was its common ap- 
pellation among the early Christians ; and 
its being so called by the disciple who leaned 
on the bosom of Christ, and who, at the 



THE SABBATH. 73 

time he wrote, was under the plenary inspi- 
ration of the Holy Ghost, is, of itself, suffi- 
cient to prove, that the day was chosen and 
hallowed by Him whose royal name it bears. 
As the prayer which Christ taught his dis- 
ciples is called " the Lord's prayer," because 
he dictated it ; and as the sacrament which 
he instituted before his death is called " the 
Lord's supper," because he appointed it to 
be a memorial of his death, and a badge of 
discipleship among his people ; it follows, 
that the Lord's day was so called, because 
he ordained that it should be the sabbath of 
his church, separated for holy uses, comme- 
morative of his victory over the grave, and a 
chief means of perpetuating and of establish- 
ing his kingdom in the earth. If it be 
pleaded, that the apostles and evangelists 
frequently went into the synagogues of the 
Jews on their sabbath, and reasoned with 
them out of the Scriptures ; we reply, they 
did this on the same principle that ministers 
and missionaries, in our day, enter places of 
public resort, to secure a large congregation. 
They visited these places on the seventh 
dny, on the principle of expediency ; where- 



74 THE SABBATH. 

as they met, in their own assemblies, on the 
first day, from a deep conviction of duty. 

Both sacred and profane history testify, 
that the first day of the week was the 
Christian sabbath. Ignatius called it " the 
queen of days ;" and he enjoined, " Let all 
who love Christ keep holy the Lord's day, 
renowned by his resurrection, in which death 
is overcome, and life is sprung up in him." 
Irenasus says, " On the Lord's day every one 
of us Christians keeps the sabbath, medi- 
tating on the law, and rejoicing in the works 
of God." Origen explains, at length, the 
reasons why the Lord's day was substituted 
for the seventh day. Augustine says, "As 
the Virgin was blessed above all women, so 
the first day is blessed above all days :" and 
he asserts, that " the apostles appointed the 
first day to be kept with all religious so- 
lemnity, because upon that day our Redeem- 
er rose from the dead, which also is there- 
fore called the Lord's day." But to cite 
individual testimonies comports not with the 
brevity of our plan ; nor are they necessary; 
for the uniform tenor of ecclesiastical history 
teaches, that, on this day, Christians^ in all 



THE SABBATH. 75 

countries, held their religious assemblies ; 
and that, in these assemblies, the writings of 
the prophets and apostles were read, the 
doctrines of Christianity were explained, 
solemn prayers and praises were offered up 
to God, hymns were sung in honour of 
Christ, the Lord's supper was constantly 
celebrated, and collections were made for 
the maintenance of the clergy and the relief 
of the poor. On this day, too, the faithful 
abstained from bodily labour, as much as 
their persecuted and servile circumstances 
permitted. They looked upon it as a day 
of joy and gladness, and, therefore, all fast- 
ing on it was prohibited. Such was their 
zeal, that when they could not meet for wor- 
ship in the daytime, because of their ene- 
mies, they assembled in the morning, before 
it was light; and severe censures were 
passed on all who absented themselves 
without necessity. When the Roman em- 
pire became Christian, Constantine prohi- 
bited all judicial pleadings and prosecutions 
in courts of justice, and also all unnecessary 
labour, as being inconsistent with the design 
and duties of the day. 



76 THE SABBATH. 

Thus, it is proved, that, from the time of 
our Lord's resurrection, up to the close of 
the third century, the first day of the week 
was celebrated, in all the churches, as the 
Christian sabbath. And when we take into 
account the unbending integrity of the apos- 
tles and first Christians, their love to their 
Lord, and their steadfast adherence to the 
letter of his instructions ; the name by which 
the day w r as distinguished ; the total absence 
of all controversy in the church, on the sub- 
ject of its sanctity, for several centuries ; 
together with the marked preference which 
our Lord showed for it, in his example, and 
the high honour which the eternal Father 
has put upon it, in succeeding ages, by 
awakening and saving sinners in its ordi- 
nances ; we possess evidence, amounting to 
demonstration, that the change was made by 
'the will, and ivith the sanction, of Him 
whom we adore as " Lord also of the 

SABBATH." 

But to adduce proof of the lawfulness of 
the change, is only part of our design : we 
think it admits of proof, that the change was 
necessary, as a part of the New-Testament 



THE SABBATH. 77 

economy ; and that it had the direct sanction 
of apostolic authority. In illustration of its 
assumed necessity we offer the following 
remarks :— 

1. The superior glory of the event com- 
memorated, rendered the change neces- 
sary. 

There is a comparative importance, and a 
due order, in the scale of events, which is as 
real, as obvious, and, in some instances, as 
influential, as the difference of numbers, or 
the distinction between primary and second- 
ary principles in science and theology : and 
the Most High, because of the absolute per- 
fection of his nature, cannot but respect this 
order in the one case, as well as in the 
others ; that is, he cannot esteem, or teach 
his creatures to esteem, that as first, which 
is, in truth, last; nor that as secondary, 
which, in its nature and efficiency, is 
primary. That the redemption of our race, 
by the sufferings of " God manifest in the 
flesh," was a much more glorious event than 
the creation of the world by the word of his 
power, will not for a moment be questioned. 
It therefore became the wisdom of him who 



78 THE SABBATH, 

is a God of order, and is not the author of 
confusion, to appoint, that the greater should 
take precedence of the less ; that the re- 
deeming work of three and thirty years should 
be honoured above the creative effort of six 
days ; and that the work in w r hich the whole 
circle of the divine perfections shone with 
surpassing splendour — by which the powers 
of hell were vanquished, the treasures of 
grace purchased, the redemption of our race 
accomplished, and the gates of heaven open- 
ed to all believers — -should be commemorated 
by the church, in preference to that work in 
which certain of the divine perfections were 
quiescent ; and which, though glorious, and 
worthy to be had in everlasting remembrance, 
" had no glory in this respect, by reason of 
the glory which excelleth." 

2. The change was necessary, to guard 
the disciples against the sin and danger of 
Judaizing. 

The great error into which the early dis- 
ciples of our Lord were in danger of falling, 
(they being, for the most part, Jews,) was 
that of blending Christianity with the abro- 
gated rites of the law ; an evil which — 



THE SABBATH, 79 

though less glaring than those to which the 
servants of God, under preceding dispensa- 
tions, were exposed— was equally inimical to 
the glory of God, the purity of his worship, 
the efficacy of his ordinances, and the spi- 
ritual interests of mankind. The apostolic 
epistles afford abundant evidence of the 
proneness, both of the converted and uncon- 
verted Jews, to cleave to the ceremonies of 
the law, and of their inclination to force the 
observance of them on the consciences of the 
Gentile converts. And as they did this on 
the principle, that they were auxiliary to 
justification, the peace of the church, and 
the salvation of both classes, required that 
this proneness should not only be restrained, 
but cured and condemned ; for, in seeking 
justification by the deeds of the law, in whole 
or in part, they fell from grace, and made 
Christ of none effect. 

These ceremonies either pointed to the 
Messiah, as yet to come, or they prefigured 
the blessings of his reign. Many of them 
were performed on the Jewish sabbath, and 
all of them were enjoined or eulogized in its 
appointed ministrations. The disciples who 



80 THE SABBATH. 

believed that Christ was already come in the 
flesh, and who had realized the good things 
of which the law was a shadow, could not, 
therefore, have kept the Jewish sabbath, 
without tacitly conceding that the objections 
of the unbelieving Jews were valid, that the 
prophecies respecting the Messiah were un- 
accomplished, that the law was preferable 
to the gospel, and that Moses was worthy of 
more honour than Christ. It was impossible 
for them to have taken part in the Jewish 
worship, without witnessing the performance 
of ceremonies which they knew had been 
abrogated, without sanctioning the perpetua- 
tion of a priesthood which had been dis- 
annulled, and without listening to teachers 
who denied the divinity of their Lord, and 
who sought the destruction of his cause, and 
plotted their death, because they were his 
followers. 

Thus the essential difference between the 
Christian and Mosaic dispensations, taken in 
connection with the bigotry of the Jew, on 
the one hand, and the Judaizing tendencies 
of the disciples on the other, required that a 
broad line of demarcation should be placed 



THE SABBATH. 81 

between them and their respective adherents ; 
that there should be no mingling of the spi- 
ritual worship of the one with the carnal 
ordinances of the other ; and that every- 
thing which seemed to compromise the 
superiority of the gospel, and its great 
Author, should be avoided, discountenanced, 
and condemned, as leading to apostacy, and 
as implying a renunciation of the truth. The 
destruction of Jerusalem was no less a bless- 
ing to the Christians than it was a judgment 
to the Jews, because of the extinguishing 
effect it had on the question of the perpetual 
obligation of Mosaic rites. But, far beyond 
all other events and arrangements, the change 
of the sabbath proved the most effectual 
guard to the disciples, against their being 
entangled again with "the yoke of bond- 
age." By this change the new dispensation 
was rendered complete ; time was secured 
for the due performance of gospel worship ; 
an emphatic protest was instituted against 
modern Judaism ; and the merited exalta- 
tion of the Lord Jesus as " head stone of 
the corner" was secured and openly pro- 
claimed, 



82 THE SABBATK. 

3. It was necessary to show forth the 
glory of Christ, his equality with the Father., 
and his Headship in his church, 

Under the Christian dispensation, "the 
Father judgeth no man ; but hath committed 
all judgment unto the Son ; that all men 
should honour the Son even as they honour 
the Father. He which honoureth not the 
Son, honoureth not the Father, which hath 
sent him." The Old-Testament church 
honoured the Father, by keeping a sabbath 
in commemoration of his resting from the 
work of creation ; and it was meet that the 
New-Testament church should, in like man- 
ner, honour the Son, by commemorating his 
rest from the more arduous work of re- 
demption. In doing this, w r e alienate none 
of the Father's claims ■ we only carry out 
his original design : we do not disparage his 
work, we only combine it with that of his 
well-beloved Son ; and, instead of establish- 
ing a rival worship, we glorify alike the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; for 
our sabbath commemorates, and our sabbath 
songs celebrate, the winders of creation, the 
mystery of redemption, together with the 



THE SABBATH. 83 

descent and gracious operations of the eter- 
nal Spirit. 

The New-Testament church is Christ's 
household, kingdom, fold, temple, mystical 
body, and bride ; and both his glory and the 
church's safety required that it should be 
made manifest to friends and foes, that he, 
and not Moses, nor any of the apostles, was 
the Ruler of the household, the King of the 
commonwealth, the chief Shepherd of the 
sheep, the Glory of the temple, the Head 
of the body, and the Bridegroom of the 
bride. This was, in part, accomplished by 
the " new name" which his people received, 
in virtue of their discipleship ; but it was 
rendered much more palpable by the sub- 
stitution of baptism for circumcision, the 
Lord's supper for the passover, the Christian 
ministry for the Jewish priesthood, and, 
especially, by the keeping of the first-day 
sabbath in the place of the seventh, as com- 
memorative of his entering into his rest. 

The keeping of the seventh-day sabbath, 
under the old dispensation, was a sign 
whereby the worshippers of Jehovah were 
distinguished in all the earth from atheists 



84 THE SABBATH. 

and idolaters. But when it pleased the Fa- 
ther to place the Son upon his holy hill of 
Sion* and to set him "forth as the Pro- 
pitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, 
but for the sins of the whole world/' it be- 
came indispensable that the sign should be 
changed and Christianized ! for the enemies 
of God then became the enemies of the 
cross of Christ, and his people were con- 
fined to such as believed in the name of 
Christ. The great truths which had then 
to be demonstrated, in opposition to Jews, 
atheists, and idolaters, were, the deity of 
Christ's person, the atoning character of his 
death, and his headship in the church, As 
the salvation of men, and the very existence 
of Christianity in the earth* hinged on these 
truths, their easy and triumphant establish- 
ment was a point of paramount importance. 
Had they been left to be reasoned out by 
laboured deductions, or proved only by re- 
fined and learned criticisms, the progress of 
the gospel must have been impeded, and 
the sphere of its triumphs circumscribed, 
especially among the uneducated classes. 
It was, therefore, not only kind and wise, 



THE SABBATH. 85 

but necessary, that our Lord should render 
the form, the character, and even the names 
of his gospel ordinances declarative of these 
cardinal truths ; and that the fact of his re- 
surrection, which demonstrated the truth of 
each and all of them, should be commemo- 
rated in his church by the keeping of a 
iveekly rest. In this commemoration the 
most unequivocal evidence is given, that 
Jesus is "the Son of the Highest," "the 
Saviour of the world," and " Head over all 
things to his church ;" and its efficiency as a 
sign is most marked ; for in no one point is 
there a more manifest difference between his 
friends and his foes, than in the religious ob- 
servance of his day. 

Nothing can more clearly indicate the 
antichristian character of Socinianism and 
Popery than the studied obscuration of the 
Redeemer's divine supremacy in his church, 
with which they are respectively chargeable. 
On the Socinian hypothesis, no satisfactory 
reason can be assigned why Jesus should 
have taken precedence of Moses, and of all 
the prophets ; why his advent should have 
formed the commencement of a new dispen- 



86 THE SABBATH, 

sation ; why his death should have been 
commemorated by a sacrament, or his re- 
surrection by a sabbath. Instead of leaving 
him in the possession of a legitimate and 
divine headship, the abettors of this system, 
by denying his deity, tacitly charge him with 
blasphemy and usurpation, in altering God's 
ordinances, in appointing that they should be 
called by his name, and should be adminis- 
tered to his honour, jointly with the Father 
and with the Holy Ghost. As for Popery, 
the prayers which its devotees address to 
Christ are "few and far between," com- 
pared with those they offer to the Virgin, 
and to other saints. Their fellowship with 
Him is made to serve only as a foil, to set 
off their imaginary connection with the 
apostle Peter, and his boasted successor, 
the bishop of Rome. For once that they 
appeal to the inspired testimony of Christ 
and his apostles in attestation of the dogmas 
of their creed, they appeal a hundred times 
to tradition, and to the writings of the 
fathers ; and their profanation of the sabbath 
stands in appalling contrast with their super- 
stitious reverence for their numerous holy*- 



THE SABBATH. 87 

days, instituted in honour of real or ficti- 
tious saints, and in commemoration of the 
lying wonders said to have been wrought at 
their shrines. The title of " the Lord's 
day," which St. John gave to the Christian 
sabbath, stamps it with a dignity and sacred- 
ness so peculiar and transcendent, that, to a 
well-instructed mind, it appears sacrilegious, 
either to profane it, or to exalt other days 
into rivalship with it : this that " man of 
sin, the son of perdition, who opposeih and 
exalteth himself above all that is called God, 
or that is worshipped, so that he, as God, 
sitteth in the temple of God, showing him- 
self that he is God," has done ; and for 
this, and his other blasphemous usurpations, 
the Lord of the sabbath, the true Head of 
the church, " shall consume him with the 
spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy him 
with the brightness of his coming." 

One thing remains to make this argument 
complete ; and that is, to furnish a brief ex- 
position of those passages in Paul's Epistles, 
which some have misconstrued into meditated 
censures on the strict observance of the day, 
whether held on the first or the seventh day. 



88 fHE SABBATH -c 

The first of these to which we shall allude 
is Gal. iv, 8-11 : " Howbeit then, when ye 
knew not God, ye did service unto them 
which by nature are no gods. But now, 
after that ye have known God, or rather are 
known of God, how turn ye again to the 
weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye 
desire again to be in bondage ? Ye observe 
days, and months, and times, and years. I 
am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon 
you labour in vain." A slight attention to 
this passage and its context is sufficient to 
discern, that the observances here condemn- 
ed had no connection either with the Chris* 
tian sabbath or with any branch of Christian 
worship; but that they were such as the 
Galatians had practised, when they " knew 
not God." These " days, and months," &c., 
were obviously parts of that " service" which 
they rendered to "them which by nature 
were no gods ;" and which they renounced 
when they were " known of God." The 
sin with which they were chargeable, there- 
fore, was not that of keeping the Christian 
sabbath with too great strictness, but that of 
turning to " the weak and beggarly elements" 



THE SABBATH. 89 

of astrological signs, and of heathen super- 
stitions, relating to lucky and unlucky days, 
to which the heathen were then, and are 
still, in bondage; and from the whole of 
which the gospel was intended to free them. 
To suppose that the apostle Paul could have 
calmly condemned the religious observance 
of the day on which his Lord rose from the 
dead, and which the Holy Ghost, by the pen 
of the beloved disciple, called " the Lord's 
day," — or that he should have stigmatized the 
day itself as a " weak and beggarly element," 
— is a stretch of credulity of which igno- 
rance and infidelity alone are capable. 

Rom. xiv, 5, 6 : " One man esteemeth one 
day above another ; another esteemeth every 
day alike. Let every man be fully persuad- 
ed in his own mind. He that regardeth the 
day, regardeth it unto the Lord ; and he that 
regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth 
not regard it." From this text it has been 
inferred, that Christians are left at liberty to 
keep the sabbath with more or less strictness, 
according to their inward convictions and 
inclinations : or not to keep it at all, if they 
are so minded. But the context proves, that 



90 THE SABBATH, 

the lawfulness, or unlawfulness, of keeping 
certain festivals and national holydays, and 
not their obligations to sanctify the Chris- 
tian sabbath, was the subject in debate 
among the Christians at Rome. " The 
strong/' and more perfect among them, had 
completely disentangled themselves from all 
prejudices in favour of these days : the day 
on which their Lord rose from the dead was 
alone sacred in their estimation, and binding 
on their conscience ; all else were common, 
and their observance optional. But " the 
weak," while they, with the whole church, 
kept this day sacred, were, on various ac- 
counts, unable to divest themselves of a 
reverence for certain other days. They dread- 
ed lest they should fall under malignant in- 
fluences, or forfeit some desired benefit, if 
they did not somehow honour them. That 
these were the days to which the apostle 
alludes, is evident from his placing them on 
a level with " the meats and drinks" of Gen- 
tile, or, at best, of Jewish, worship ; as well 
as from the liberty he allows to both parties, 
in respect of both subjects. On these un- 
important points the church was divided ; 



THE SABBATH. 91 

and he sought a union, on the principle of 
mutual forbearance. His judgment, on the 
one hand, was, that as " the weak" kept the 
day to the Lord, and not to the idol, nor 
with a Judaizing intent, it ought not to be 
reckoned sin by their stronger and better- 
informed brethren, though they thus turned 
an ancient festival to spiritual profit : and, 
on the other hand, he taught, that those who 
kept none of these days, but spent them in 
the common avocations of life, thinking it 
dangerous to trifle with the figments of super- 
stition, were wholly blameless; seeing the 
keeping of such days formed no part of the 
discipline of the church, or of the obedience 
they owed to Christ, their only Lord and 
Master. Such was the decision of the apos- 
tle ; and, admitting the matters in debate to 
have been non-essential, it was oracular. 
But had the keeping of the sabbath been 
the question litigated, such a decision would 
have implied a flagrant compromise of prin- 
ciple ; and, therefore, we may confidently 
assert, no such latitude would have been 
allowed the dissentient parties. No ! the 
day on which the sabbath was held had been 



92 THE SABBATH. 

changed, but the law which enjoined the 
festival itself was still in force, and could 
not be set aside, either by the freaks of 
superstition, or the innovations of presump- 
tion. Prompt, undeviating obedience, was 
alike the duty of the weak and the strong, 
the pastors and the people. Neither Peter 
nor Paul had, or ever pretended to have, the 
dispensing power since claimed and exercised 
by the head of mystical Babylon. No ! 
they felt, and meekly confessed, that they, 
as well as the meanest member in the 
church, were " under the law to Christ." 
Therefore, "what the apostle hath written 
concerning Jewish holydays, in this passage, 
cannot be extended to the sabbath instituted 
at the creation, nor to the Christian sabbath."* 
The text on which the greatest stress has 
been laid, by those who desire to weaken 
the moral obligation of our sabbath, is Col. 
ii, 16, 17 : " Let no man judge you in meat, 
or in drink, or in respect of a holyday, or 
of the new moon, or of the sabbath-days ; 
which are a shadow of things to come : but 
the body is of Christ." The rites and festi- 
* Dr. Macknight, 



THE SABBATH. 93 

vals referred to in this passage are obviously 
Jewish ; for none of the pagan ceremonies 
were shadows of Christian privileges ; and 
there is nothing, either in the text or context, 
which can in fairness be construed into an 
argument against the Christian sabbath ; for 
it is impossible that it should have been a 
shadow of itself. To understand the pas- 
sage aright, it must be recollected^ that the 
Colossians, as Christians, regarded the whole 
Jewish ceremonial as abrogated ; and that 
they kept the first day of the week as their 
sabbath, in harmony with all the sister church- 
es. The Jews resident among them were 
incensed at this : they maintained, that the 
ceremonial law was still in force, that Chris- 
tianity was a corruption of the religion of 
their fathers ; that unless the Christians were 
circumcised they could not be saved ; that 
the seventh was the true sabbath-day ; and 
that to change the day was to nullify the 
ordinance. To induce, and, if possible, to 
force, the Christians to adopt these opinions, 
and to mingle Mosaic ceremonies with their 
simple and evangelical worship, the Jewish 
doctors threatened, flattered, dogmatized, 



94 THE SABBATH, 

and endeavoured to usurp dominion over 
them, as if they had been lords of their con- 
sciences, arbiters of their fate, and their 
superiors in everything. This arrogance 
the apostle justly resented and strongly con- 
demned. To finish the controversy respect- 
ing legal observances, and put these proud 
boasters to silence, he describes the whole 
of that knowledge which was opposed to the 
knowledge of Christ, as vain and deceitful 
philosophy, which had no authority but un- 
certain tradition, and which in its character 
harmonized with the mercenary maxims and 
spirit of the world. He represents Christ 
not only as superior to all human teachers, 
but as being " the Head of all principality 
and power ;" as having " in him all the trea- 
sures of wisdom and knowledge ;" and " the 
fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him 
bodily." He declares that the Colossians 
were " complete in Him ;" and, consequent- 
ly, needed neither to have recourse to angels, 
nor to the law of Moses, nor to the Greek 
philosophers, for precepts to guide them, 
ordinances to edify them, or merit to justify 
them. After asserting, that they possessed 



THE SABBATH. 95 

that inward " circumcision" which the cir- 
cumcision in the flesh typified, — even a 
death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteous- 
ness, — he states, that the Lord Jesus has 
blotted out "the hand- writing of" ceremonial 
" ordinances" which was against them, bar- 
ring them out of the covenant ; and that he 
had nailed it to his cross, as a covenant that 
had been cancelled. Having established 
these premises, he adds, " Let no man there- 
fore judge you," &c. : as if he had said, 
" You live under the highest and purest dis- 
pensation of grace ; for the rites and festivals 
of the former dispensation were only sha- 
dows of the blessings you enjoy in virtue 
of your union with the body of Christ. The 
Lord Jesus has annulled these shadowy 
ordinances, by his cross, and has sanctified 
all the bounties of Providence for your use ; 
so that no creature of God is now to be re- 
fused, but received with thanksgiving. As, 
therefore, he who is Lord of all has made 
you free, Met no man judge you,' or bring 
you into bondage, 'in respect of meat, or 
drink, or a holyday, or of the new moon, 
or of the sabbath-days, which are a shadow 



96 THE SABBATH. 

of things to come ; but the body*— the church, 
whose more spiritual ordinances and higher 
privileges they prefigured — -' is of Christ.' " 
Some commentators, we are aware, under- 
stand by " sabbath-days," in this text, Jewish 
feasts ; but as " holydays, new moons, and 
sabbath-days" are separately specified, we 
cannot doubt that the seventhly sabbath is 
intended ; and that the apostle included it 
for the express purpose of informing the 
church, that it was only a shadow of our 
more glorious sabbath, as ours is of the hea- 
venly ; and that, as far as the day on which 
it was held, and the Jewish restrictions with 
which it was encumbered, were concerned, 
it was abrogated, with the other Jewish 
festivals, and the ceremonial restrictions in 
meats and drinks. 

It may, therefore, be affirmed, that these 
passages, instead of militating against the 
moral obligation of the Christian sabbath, 
strongly corroborate it. That the apostle 
and first Christians kept the first day of the 
week, as a day for public worship, is cer- 
tain ; and, therefore, the cautions he address- 
ed to the churches, against the observation 



THE SABBATH. 97 

of all other holydays, can be understood in 
no other light than as guards thrown around 
the Lord's day, and as implied injunctions 
that they should keep it as a sacred day. 
The sabbath is essentially a weekly ordinance, 
and both its typical and commemorative de- 
signs forbade that it should be duplicated. 
The Jewish church was cut off, and it ex- 
pired, when the nation rejected the Lord's 
Anointed, and refused to come to the mar- 
riage supper; and, since that time, their 
worship, no less than the curses they impre- 
cate on the head of Christ, bespeak their 
unbelief, and indicate their excommunicate 
state. They are still an interesting people ; 
but they are no longer a church ; and, there- 
fore, their sabbath cannot be the sabbath 
of the Lord. The church is now essentially 
Christian ; and God could no more have 
sanctioned two sabbaths in his one church, 
than he could have created two suns in the 
solar system ; because his wisdom is as in- 
capable of producing confusion, by means 
of redundancy, as it is of sacrificing order, 
by overlooking essential defect. Contradic- 
tions cannot proceed from him ; and, there- 
7 



98 THE SABBATH* 

fore, in his saving economy, the type gives 
place to the antitype, the shadow to the sub- 
stance, the wonders of creation to the bright- 
er glories of redemption ; and the Christian 
church, with its first-day sabbath, takes the 
place of the Jewish church, and its seventh- 
day sabbath. 

To assume, that the change of the sab- 
bath was made without divine authority, is, 
in effect, to affirm, first, that though the 
Lord Jesus, " through the Holy Ghost, gave 
commandments unto the apostles whom he 
had chosen, being seen of them forty days, 
and speaking of the things pertaining to his 
kingdom ;" he, nevertheless, failed to make 
them acquainted with his will, and to give 
them a correct impression respecting his de- 
sign. Secondly. That though, in addition 
to his personal instructions, he gave them 
the Holy Ghost, to guide them into all truth, 
and to bring all things to their remembrance, 
whatsoever he had said unto them ; they, 
nevertheless, forgot what he had said, depart- 
ed from the truth, and led the churches into 
errors which implied a violation of the law, 
and a flagrant corruption of the worship of 



THE SABBATH. 99 

God. Thirdly. That though the churches 
generally adopted this sacrilegious innova- 
tion, the Lord Jesus (who punished the 
Corinthians with divers diseases, and sundry 
kinds of death, for profaning his supper) not 
only did not punish or reprove them, but he 
met in the midst of them, answered their 
prayers, wrought miracles by their hands, 
and converted myriads of idolaters to his faith 
and worship through their instrumentality. 
These absurd and impious conclusions are 
clearly involved in the assumption, that the 
sabbath was changed without the concur- 
rence and sanction of our Lord ; but as dark- 
ness cannot proceed from the sun, so neither 
can folly flow from the Fountain of wisdom, 
nor impiety from Him who is glorious in 
holiness. 

True Christians, in all ages, have testified, 
that the Lord's day has been to them, above 
other days, what the year of jubilee was to 
the Jews among other years. And we, in 
unison with them, attest, that our brightest 
views of truth, our richest baptisms of grace, 
and our most transporting foretastes of 
heaven, are identified, in our recollection, 



100 THE SABBATH. 

with its sacred hours and ordinances. Nearly 
all the sound conversions which have taken 
place in the w T orld, have been begun, or con- 
summated, on this day. There is no or- 
dinance in the church which God more uni- 
formly guards by the sanctions of his provi- 
dence, and honours with the blessings of his 
grace, than this. Those who keep it holy 
are blessed in their basket, and in their store; 
their souls prosper, and are in health ; and 
their children are, for the most part, found 
walking in the truth : whereas those who 
secularize it, or who turn it into a day of 
pastime, put their gains into a bag with 
holes ; they seek rest, but they find none ; 
their spiritual interests languish, if they are 
not entirely neglected ; and their children, 
with few exceptions, forsake the worship and 
ways of the living God. The judicial records 
of our country evidence, that, in a multitude 
of instances, the desecration of the Lord's 
day has been the first step to apostacy, to 
bankruptcy, to banishment, and to ignomini- 
ous death. Jews, Socinians, and such of the 
Quakers and Baptists as account it common, 
are left by the great Head of the church, 



THE SABBATH. 101 

44 Like Gideon's fleece, 
Unwater'd still and dry ;" 

while on those communities and congrega- 
tions who sanctify it, as the " holy of the 
Lord, and honourable," the dews of sovereign 
grace 

" Fall plenteous from the sky." 

Unless, therefore, we are prepared to 
maintain, that the Spirit of prophecy lied, 
that our Lord erred, that his apostles and the 
primitive Christians misunderstood his in- 
structions, and misinterpreted his example ; 
that the redemption of our race was a less 
glorious event than the creation of our world ; 
that the Son is not entitled to equal honour 
with the Father ; that the demonstration of 
his headship in the church was a point of 
no importance ; — and unless we can suppose, 
further, that the eternal God can sanction 
the corruption of his own worship, can wink 
at the annulling of his own ordinances, can 
approve of the violation of his own law, can 
bless error, and can reward those who cross 
his purpose and contradict his will ; — unless 
we can suppose these absurdities, are pre- 
pared to maintain these blasphemies, we 



102 THE SABBATH. 

must admit, that the sabbath was changed to " 
the first day of the week under the divine 
sanction, and with the divine concurrence ; 
that the change was called for by the sur- 
passing glory of the new dispensation, and 
was in harmony with the highest wisdom, 
the glory of God, and the best interests of 
mankind. And, if this be admitted, it follows, 
that our obligations to keep our sabbath holy 
are as much stronger than those which 
bound the Jews to keep theirs, as our dis-^ 
pensation surpasses theirs in light, in grace, 
and in power. 



THE SABBATH. 103 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SPIRIT AND MANNER IN WHICH IT OUGHT 
TO BE SANCTIFIED. 

We now enter on what may be termed 
the application of the arguments adduced in 
our preceding observations. If the design of 
the sabbath be not only benevolent, wise, 
and holy, but coextensive with the ages of 
time, and with the successive generations of 
men ; if the law of the sabbath be essentially 
moral, and, consequently, of perpetual obli- 
gation ; and if the change of the day was 
made with the approbation, and under the 
direct sanction, of the Lord Jesus ; it follows, 
that it is our duty to keep it holy, regardless 
of human opinions, and at the risk of suffer- 
ing the loss of all things. Satisfied that our 
arguments on the above points are incontro- 
vertible, their soundness is here assumed, 
and their consequences are carried out. 
The plan of sabbath-sanctification advocated 
in the following pages, may be denounced 
by some as utterly incompatible with the 
present state and habits of society. To all 



104 THE SABBATH. 

such objectors we have only to say, that our 
appeal is " to the law and to the testimony," 
to the facts of history, and to the practice of 
our Lord and of his first disciples ; and 
unless those objectors can overturn our pre- 
mises, it is at their peril if they reject our 
consequences. Without further preface we 
remark, that the sanctification of the sabbath 
implies, 

1 . That we regard the day as the Lord's, 
and keep it holy out of respect to his au- 
thority, and with a distinct reference to his 
glory. 

Though the sabbath is characterized by 
supreme wisdom, enlightened benevolence, 
and tender humanity, there is no institution, 
bearing the impress of divine authority, 
which has been so generally neglected, or so 
frequently desecrated. The proud neglect 
it because it encroaches on their fancied in- 
dependence ; the avaricious, because it limits 
their opportunities of amassing riches ; the 
lovers of pleasure, because it interferes with 
the gratification of their lusts ; the undevout, 
because of the spirituality of its duties ; and 
the unbelieving, because it assumes the being 



THE SABBATH. 105 

of a God, the existence of providence, the 
responsibility of man, and the truth of re- 
vealed religion. It is "the holy of the 
Lord ;" and, because it stands identified with 
the honour of his name, the preservation of 
his truth, and the purity of his worship, it 
has to encounter opposition from all who 
take up religion merely out of deference to 
public opinion, or from a regard to outward 
decency. None but those who are controlled 
by a deep and reverential respect for the au- 
thority of God, and the vital interests of re- 
ligion, either enter into its lofty design, or 
yield a cheerful submission to its holy re- 
strictions. 

The Scriptures abound with allusions to 
the motives from which human actions 
spring ; and they contain numerous exam- 
ples of God's displeasure against those who, 
through pride or carelessness, violated the in- 
stituted order of his worship. When Nadab 
and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, offered strange 
fire, the Lord slew them, and said, " I will 
be sanctified in them that come nigh to me ; 
and before all the people will I be glorified." 
The breach which was made upon Israel, by 



106 THE SABBATH. 

the death of Uzzah, when the ark was 
brought up from the house of Abinadab, in 
Gibeah, was occasioned by a disregard of 
the command respecting the mode in which 
that sacred vessel was to be removed. 
Num. iv, 15, compared with 1 Chron. xv, 
12, 13. When the Jews ceased to respect 
the authority of God, and failed to make his 
glory their ultimate end in his worship, he 
that killed an ox was as if he slew a man ; 
he that sacrificed a lamb, as if he cut off a 
dog's neck ; he that offered an oblation, as 
if he offered swine's flesh ; and he that 
burned incense, as if he blessed an idol. 
And if we, on the sabbath, abstain from la- 
bour, and attend ordinances, merely to re- 
fresh the body, to escape the charge of 
irreligion, or out of deference to human au- 
thority and custom, or because we delight in 
pulpit oratory, in music, or in dress ; he will 
scorn our worship, and will punish us with 
those who sacrifice to their own net, and 
who burn incense to their own drag. For 
though a good motive cannot sanctify a bad 
action, a corrupt motive does vitiate a service 
which is otherwise correct. 



THE SABBATH. 107 

The Pharisees gave alms ; but it was that 
they might have glory of men : they made 
long prayers ; but it was for a pretence : 
they fasted ; but they disfigured their faces, 
that they might appear unto men to fast : and, 
therefore, they had their reward ; that is, 
they gained the praise of men, and incurred 
the curse of God. The service of God is a 
" reasonable service ;" and, to be acceptable, 
it must be performed from pure motives, and 
in accordance with the directions contained 
in his written word. " God is a Spirit ; and 
they that worship him, must worship him 
in spirit and in truth." In his worship the 
posture of the body is important, only so far 
as it expresses or promotes the lowliness and 
fervour of the mind ; the language of the 
lips is valuable only as a vehicle for declar- 
ing the desires, and as an index to the dis- 
positions of the inner man ; and unless our 
cessation from secular toil, on the sabbath, 
be associated with a distinct recognition of 
the authority of God, a grateful recollec- 
tion of his creative goodness and redeeming 
love, faith in the mediation of the Lord Je- 
sus, and an unreserved surrender of our- 



108 THE SABBATH. 

selves to his service ; our worship, being 
devoid of faith and love, will be rejected 
as bodily exercise, and as mere lip-service. 

The Lord of the sabbath trieth the hearts 
and the reins of his worshippers. He know- 
eth what is in man ; and no language, 
however Scriptural, — no offerings, however 
costly, — can procure acceptance in his sight, 
if inward submission, and a single intention 
to please him, be wanting. Independently 
of profit or loss, praise or blame, popular 
custom or human caprice, we must keep the 
sabbath holy. We must keep it holy because 
it is his, set apart for his worship, claimed 
by his commandment, sanctified by his ex- 
ample, and associated with his honour and 
our salvation. Instead of resting in the 
form, we must subordinate that to the spirit 
of the ordinance, and maintain a sweet har- 
mony between the motives of our minds, the 
language of our lips, and the whole of our 
outward deportment. In the closet, in the 
sanctuary, and in the domestic circle, — 
morning, noon, and night, — we must honour 
Him, not doing our own ways, nor finding 
our own pleasure, nor speaking our own 



THE SABBATH. 109 

words. And if we, and our respective 
households, thus delight ourselves in the 
Lord, and in his holy day, he " will cause 
us to ride upon the high places of the earth, 
and will feed us with the heritage of Jacob ; 
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 
The sanctification of the sabbath implies, 

2. That we devote the whole day to the 
Lord, — not a part of it. 

The spirit, as well as the letter, of the law 
requires, that we consecrate each seventh 
day to the worship of God. No one doubts, 
whether the six days given for worldly busi- 
ness are to be taken entire ; and were not 
the carnal mind enmity against God, and not 
subject to his law, the Popish distinction of 
"church hours" would never have been 
heard of. This is one of the many ways in 
which the Church of Rome, and those who 
symbolize with her, make void the law of 
God ; and the fact, that some of our statutes, 
and many of our church-going population, 
still recognise " church hours" as possess- 
ing an extra sanctity, and a special obliga- 
tion, which do not appertain to the other 
parts of the day, proves, that the Reforma- 



110 THE SABBATH. 

tion was incomplete, and that Protestants 
have much to learn, both in respect of duty 
and of privilege. 

This distinction has not even the shadow 
of Scriptural authority , ; and, if admitted, it 
would utterly destroy the harmony which 
exists between the type and the antitype, 
the earthly and the heavenly rest. It is ob- 
viously based on the impious assumption, 
that our obligations to keep the day holy are 
human and conventional ; and it involves the 
double guilt of taking from, and of adding to, 
the things written in the book of God. It 
implies, that the duty we owe to God is al- 
together public and ceremonial ; that family 
worship, the religious training of our chil- 
dren, and the cultivation of a devout spirit, 
are matters of trivial importance, and may 
be neglected without loss, or guilt, or any 
great risk. Nay, more : it implies, that God 
has claimed an undue proportion of our 
time ; that his sabbath is a tax on our tem- 
poral interests, and a bar to our happiness ; 
and that, consequently, we do well to alienate 
part of it to business or pleasure, as we may 
feel inclined. These are some of the guilty 



THE SABBATH. Ill 

assumptions with which this irreligious mu- 
tilation of the Lord's day is chargeable ; and 
the bare mention of them is sufficient to in- 
spire each lover of the sabbath with holy 
indignation. Every sound * argument which 
can be adduced, to prove that a part of the 
sabbath ought to be sanctified, when carried 
to its legitimate issue, would prove that the 
entire day is holy, and ought to be employed 
in the public and private exercises of religion. 
Let none, therefore, deceive themselves, 
by imagining, that if they attend a place of 
worship once or twice, they are at liberty to 
spend the remainder of the day in journeying, 
pleasure excursions, domestic amusements, 
or preparatory arrangements for the business 
of Monday. " God is not mocked." The 
day, the whole day, is his, and he commands 
us to keep it holy. He scorns a divided alle- 
giance ; and it is at our peril if we divide 
its hours between his worship and the ser- 
vice of mammon. If we mar the type, we 
dishonour its Author, we destroy its efficacy, 
and we forfeit our interest in its heavenly 
antitype. To rob God of a part of his day 
in private, after we have been professing to 



112 THE SABBATH. 

worship him in public, is rank hypocrisy ; 
it is to enact the sin of Ananias and Sapphi- 
ra ; and if we become partners in their guilt, 
we shall, sooner or later, be made sharers in 
their punishment. If we condemn the 
secularity of the Jews, who turned the 
temple into a house of merchandise ; and 
abhor the impiety of Belshazzar, who, " with 
his princes, his wives, and his concubines," 
in their proud revelry, " drank out of the 
golden and silver vessels which Nebuchad- 
nezzar had taken out of the house of the 
Lord in Jerusalem ;" let us shrink from the 
no less palpable sacrilege of prostituting the 
evening hours of the Lord's day to the pur- 
poses of worldly toil, or domestic con- 
viviality. If we would escape the curse of 
him " that doeth the work of the Lord de- 
ceitfully," there must be no mistake in this 
matter, — no halting between two opinions, 
no trimming between God and mammon. 
The " sign" will take effect, proving, either 
that we are for the Redeemer, or that we 
are against him ; that we are of those who 
gather with him, or that our ignominious 
employment is to scatter and destroy. The 



THE SABBATH-. 113 

^commandments of the Lord are not griev- 
ous ; and he will not allow us, with impu- 
nity, to asperse him 7 either by word or deed, 
as if he were an austere master, u reaping 
where he had not sown, and gathering where 
he had not strawed." 

" But wisdom is justified of her children V' 
and the sons of God confess, that " his ser- 
vice is perfect freedomJ 5 u A bay in thy 
courts is better than a thousand. I had 
rather be a door-keeper" (or, as the margin 
reads, " I would choose rather to sit at the 
•threshold") 4i of the house of my God, than 
to dwell in the tents of wickedness." This 
is the genuine language of all that love God. 
To them the sabbath-day is the best and 
brightest of the seven. They long for its 
dawn; they regret its decline; they rejoice 
that on it u God rested from all his work ;" and 
that he has instructed them to keep it holy, 
from its commencement to its close. They 
exult in the fact, that their Lord broke from 
the captivity of the grave " very early in 
the morning, while it was yet dark;" and 
ceased not to commune and to break bread 
with his disciples, till it was " toward eve- 
8 



114 THE SABBATH. 

ning, and the day far spent." Whether 
they consider the example he has set them, 
the commandments he has given them, the 
claims of his love, the interests of his cause, 
the happiness of their fellow-men, the wants 
of their own souls, or the fatigues of their 
bodies, they dare not alienate any part of 
it from its divine and legitimate uses ; and 
to all who tempt them to join in its desecra- 
tion they say, " How can I do this great 
wickedness, and sin against God?" The 
sanctification of the sabbath implies, 

3. That we make timely preparation for 
it before it arrives. 

Religion is no enemy to industry. On 
the contrary, the Scriptures commend it as 
a virtue, while they denounce idleness as an 
odious and destructive vice. The fourth 
commandment, in particular, is not more ex- 
plicit in enjoining that we rest on the seventh 
day, than that we labour and do all our work 
on the preceding six days. It is the will 
of God, that we so despatch and arrange our 
worldly and domestic affairs during the week, 
that they may stand still, without detriment 
to them, or distraction to us, while we wait 



THE SABBATH. 115 

upon God on his own day. The history of 
each religious family in the land proves, that 
such a plan is both practicable and profitable. 
" Remember the sabbath-day, to keep it 
holy? — That is, look before you to the con- 
clusion of the week. Do not allow your- 
selves to be so immersed in the affairs of the 
world, that the sabbath shall come upon you 
unawares : have respect to it through the 
whole of your week-day employments. En- 
ter into no engagements which will entangle 
your consciences, or lay you under tempta- 
tions to neglect its duties, or to desecrate its 
hours. The Jews were led, by this solemn 
injunction, to spend the day before their sab- 
bath in preliminary duties ; and hence it was 
called, " the day of preparation." At a 
convocation of Scottish clergy, held in Perth, 
in the year 1180, it was ordained, "That 
every Saturday, from twelve o'clock, should 
be set apart for preparation for the Lord's 
day ; and that all the people on Saturday 
evening, at the sound of the bell, should ad- 
dress themselves to hear prayers, and should 
abstain from worldly labours till Monday 
morning." In 1 644 the English parliament 



116 THE SABBATH. 

enacted, " That the Lord's day ought to be 
so remembered beforehand, as that all world- 
ly business may be so ordered, and so timely 
and seasonably laid aside, that they may not 
be impediments to the due sanctification of 
the day when it comes." The practice 
which still prevails in some parts of the 
country, of liberating servants, labourers, and 
scholars on the afternoon of Saturday, had 
its origin in a laudable desire that they should 
" remember the sabbath-day to keep it holy." 
Had those professing Christians who are 
share-holders in railways, and other sabbath- 
breaking companies, remembered this divine 
injunction, they would have demanded a 
legal pledge, that no sabbath-trading would, 
under any circumstances, be allowed, before 
they bought a share, or subscribed a dollar. 
But they forgot, if they did not disregard, 
the word of the Lord ; and they are now 
paying the penalty. Had some professing 
parents remembered it, before they appren- 
ticed their children to sabbath-breaking 
tradesmen, they would not now have had to 
deplore, as they have, the irreligion and un- 
dutifulness of those who ought to have been 



THK SABBATH. 117 

the joy and the glory of their declining years. 
And of others it may be said, that if they 
had so remembered it as to stipulate with their 
employers, that they should neither work at 
home, nor travel abroad, on this holy day, 
they would not have been so lost to God, to 
virtue, and to honour, as they unhappily are. 

Neither the sabbath nor its ordinances 
operate as a charm on the soul of man. It 
is awfully possible for us to enjoy the day* 
without answering its design ; to be in the 
house of God, without realizing his presence ; 
and hear his gospel, without feeling its pow- 
er. These results are not only possible, but 
they will infallibly ensue, unless we " set 
the Lord alway before" us, and so order our 
worldly affairs, and prepare our hearts, that 
we may wait "only upon the Lord," yield- 
ing ourselves up to his teaching with meek 
and undistracted attention. 

Considering how intimately the efficacy 
of ordinances, and the salvation of men, are 
linked with the observance of the sabbath, 
and how essential previous preparation is to 
its s an ctifi cation ; those masters incur a fear- 
ful responsibility who, by tasking their ser- 



118 THE SABBATH. 

vants, by giving them extra wages, or by- 
postponing the payment of their wages till a 
late hour on Saturday night, lay them un- 
der strong temptations not only to neglect all 
preparation for the services of the day, but 
to desecrate the day itself. Those heads 
of families also are culpable who permit 
their children and servants to leave certain 
departments of household service to be per- 
formed on the Lord's day morning, which, 
with management, might have been done on 
the previous night ; or who, to save time, 
encourage them to anticipate certain duties 
on the Sunday evening, which properly be- 
long to the following morning. We are 
fully aware of the temptations which some 
tradesmen have to break the sabbath ; but 
no temptation, however strong, can justify 
the breach of the law of God. There is such 
a thing as suffering for righteousness ; and 
to them that do so, even to the forsaking of 
" houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father* 
or mother, or wife* or children, or lands," the 
Redeemer has promised " a hundred-fold 
now, and in the world to come eternal life." 
Sufferings and losses are not to be chosen 



THE SABBATH. 119 

for their own sake ; but when they can be 
avoided only by the sacrifice of a good con- 
science, it is at once our duty and our gain 
to embrace them, in their most aggravated 
forms. 

The inefncacy of gospel ordinances is a 
ground of grief and surprise to all godly 
persons and faithful ministers. With a minis- 
try which is plain, powerful, and persuasive, 
and with the most unrestrained liberty to 
profess and practise true religion, a large 
proportion of those who attend our sanctua- 
ries remain unsaved. Without denying the 
existence of auxiliary hinderances, it is our 
firm conviction, that a chief cause of the 
inutility of gospel ministrations, with multi- 
tudes, is, the hurry and distraction of mind 
induced by the cooking, cleaning, dressing, 
and visiting which are crowded into the 
Lord's day. If the ground be unprepared, 
it avails nothing though the seed be good, 
and the sower diligent, — for it will lie on 
the surface ; and, in that case, it will either 
be devoured by the birds of the air, or 
scorched by the sun, or choked by the briers 
and weeds. If we grieve the Holy Spirit 



120 THE £AB&ATB\ 

during the week r how can we hope he will 
comfort us on the sabbath t If we do not 
supplicate bi& aid in private, how can we ex- 
pect to be blessed with his celestial influences 
in public ? The sabbath must be remember- 
ed before it comes, in order to be enjoyed 
when it comes. Sabbath ordinances must 
be approached in a sabbath frame,, otherwise 
they will harden, rather than soften, and 
blind, rather than enlighten : and y to secure 
this frame, we must not only lay the world 
aside with our hands,, in proper time, but 
eject it from our hearts ; praying, with all 
prayer, that the Lord of the sabbath would 
possess them, and subdue all things to 
himself. 

Anciently the people of God met as regu- 
larly, though not so numerously, for Satur- 
day-evening prayers, as they did for Sunday- 
morning worship. In this, as in other points, 
Methodism is a revival of primitive Chris- 
tianity. In most of our town chapels devo- 
tional services are held on Saturday night ; 
and those who frequent them are witnesses 
of their utility in disburdening the mind of 
worldly care, and in preparing the soul for 



THE SABBATH, 121 

beholding the beauty of the Lord in his tem- 
ple. These meetings, like the pulse of the 
body, indicate the healthiness or sickliness of 
our societies. "When the power of religion 
is low, they languish ; when it flourishes, 
they prosper. To some, we are aware, they 
are inaccessible ; but to those who can at- 
tend, we earnestly and affectionately recom- 
mend them. What can be more appropriate 
than for Christians to meet together, to give 
God thanks for the mercies and deliverances 
of the week which is drawing to a close ; 
to praise him for the prospect of another 
sabbath on this side of heaven ; and to crave 
his blessing and presence in those ordinances 
with which their salvation is so closely identi- 
fied ? Our confident, expectation is, that, in 
proportion as our own and other churches 
become leavened with the power of godliness^ 
these services will be multiplied ; and that a 
majority of the Lord's people will be found 
worshipping in them. The sanctification of 
the sabbath implies, 

4. That we not only avoid the sins forbidden 
in the other precepts of the law, but that we rest 
from worldly employments and recreations. 



122 THE SABBATH; 

Swearing, lying, thieving, drunkenness, 
disobedience to parents, and lewdness, are 
aggravated offences, at any time, and under 
any circumstances ; but when committed on 
the Lord's day, they indicate the deepest 
depravity of heart, and the highest possible 
contempt of God. Transgressors cannot 
give a more unequivocal proof of proficiency 
in vice, than to sin openly on the sabbath. 
The law, however, not only forbids sin, in 
the ordinary acceptation of the term, but 
worldly employments and recreations. 

" In it thou shalt do no work." — The na- 
ture of the case, as well as other texts of 
Scripture, requires, that this prohibition be 
so interpreted, as to except works of necessity 
and mercy. Our Lord taught, that it was 
lawful to heal diseases, to flee from danger, 
to do good, to satisfy hunger, to save life, 
to pull an ox or an ass out of a pit, and to 
loose and lead cattle away to watering. These 
exceptions are obviously specimens, rather 
than a perfect catalogue, of permitted works. 
No one can doubt, that it is lawful to quench 
fire ; to defend ourselves from aggression, 
whether of war or of robbers ; to guide the 



THE SABBATH. 123 

helm and shift the sails at sea ; to visit the 
sick ; to prepare necessary food for our 
households ; to make collections for the 
poor and the cause of God ; to teach the 
children of the poor and the profligate to 
read the word of God ; and, when it cannot 
be delayed, to bury the dead. But, while 
we glorify God, and exemplify the benignant 
character of Christianity, by engaging in 
exercises which are clearly works of neces- 
sity and mercy, we need to guard lest sloth, 
or self-interest, plead necessity where none 
exists. Medical men often impose on them- 
selves in this way. Except in seasons of 
epidemic disease, and on some other extra- 
ordinary occasions, they might generally, by 
diligence and prudent foresight, secure time 
for attending public worship. The skepti- 
cism which prevails in the medical profession 
is, no doubt, nursed, if it be not occasioned, 
by habitual absence from the means of grace ; 
and young practitioners, who yet believe 
there is a God, that man has a soul, and that 
Christianity is divine, will do well to " re- 
member the sabbath-day to keep it holy," 
lest they also be given up to " strong delu- 



124 THE SABBATH, 

sions." Captains of vessels, and seafaring 
men, generally err in this matter. Under 
the pretence, that the sabbath is a lucky day, 
that the tide serves, or that the wind is fair, 
they contrive to make it a common day for 
fitting out, and for leaving the harbour ; as 
if chance, and not Providence, ruled the 
winds of heaven, the tides of the ocean, and 
the affairs of men ; as if God could be pro- 
pitiated by a practice implying a direct 
breach of his law, or could permit those to 
be ultimate losers who prefer the interests 
of eternity to those of time, and the glory 
of his name to the favour of men and the 
figments of superstition ! No class of men 
can be trained to habits of religion and 
morality, without sabbath worship ; and the 
proverbial irreligion of those sailors who are 
debarred from it, constitutes an argument in 
favour of the sanctification of the day which, 
we trust, will ere long lead to the discontinu- 
ance of the practice of which we complain. 
The owners of factories, and other public 
works, greatly err, if they think they are 
justified in repairing their machinery on the 
sabbath, on pretence, that they thereby pre- 



THE SABBATH. 125 

vent their hands from losing a day's wages. 
No ! such men seek their own interest, not 
that of the poor; and while the harsh clank- 
ing of the Sunday hammer publishes their 
profanity in the ears of men, the pretence on 
which it is wielded proclaims their hypocrisy 
in the ear of God. Neither can those shop- 
keepers be exculpated who trade on the sab- 
bath, on the plea, that they deal in. perish- 
able articles. In most instances, the supply 
of such articles can be regulated according to 
the demand ; and, admitting that, occasion- 
ally, some loss be sustained by preserving a 
good conscience, it is our duty to keep the 
law of God at all hazards, and despite of all 
sacrifices. " The Lord God is a sun and 
shield : the Lord will give grace and glory : 
no good thing will he withhold from them 
that walk uprightly." We have known 
many tradesmen and shopkeepers, who were 
poor and ignoble while they traded on the 
sabbath ; but who, from the day they sacri- 
ficed their ungodly gains, prospered, and 
grew in favour both with God and man. 
And we could specify many powerful firms 
that have been ruined, and rich families which 



126 THE SABBATH^ 

have been impoverished, whose contempt of 
the sabbath was notorious. In those factories 
in which the practice of repairing machinery 
on Sunday is kept up, repairs are continually 
required ; which may be accounted for on 
the ground, that fractures are aggravated by 
postponement, that the repairs made on Sun- 
day are often necessarily superficial, and that 
they are effected by men destitute of reli- 
gious principle. 

The law of the sabbath presupposes the 
existence of a remunerating and retributive 
Providence ; and it is so framed as to con- 
fute and silence the unbelieving fears and 
avaricious reasonings of the human heart. 
" In it thou shalt not do any work." As if 
he had said, " However low your wages, or 
large your family ; however elevated your 
rank, or extensive your trade ; however 
threatened by your employers, or tempted 
by your customers ; you must on no account 
rob me, and wrong your own souls, by doing 
ordinary work on my holy day." Such is 
the sovereign will of God ; and though by a 
strict adherence to it, we may be overtaken 
by difficulties, and may have to sustain 



THE SABBATH, 127 

losses, yet our salvation depends on our 
fidelity ; and though we may not be remu- 
nerated in time, we shall in that day when 
we enter into the " rest which remaineth for 
the people of God." 

It may be affirmed of all who buy, or sell, 
or labour, on this holy day, that they neither 
fear God nor regard man ; for they violate 
the laws, and invade the rights, of both. 
They manifest an atheistical distrust in Pro- 
vidence ; they pour contempt on one of the 
most benignant institutions to which the God 
of mercy has given existence ; they betray 
an utter indifference about the enjoyment of 
God's favour, and a total disregard of his 
threatened vengeance. It strikes us as a 
remarkable fact, that while common trading 
and ordinary shopkeeping are generally re- 
garded as flagrant breaches of the sabbath, 
the sale of spirituous liquors is scarcely 
reckoned a sin. In London, porter is openly 
hawked about the streets ; and those families 
are thought excessively precise who do not 
take it in on the Lord's day. In the country, 
public-house keepers who will not entertain 
company, nor sell spirits, are spoken of as 



128 THE SABBATH. 

paragons of goodness. How comes this 
about? How is this lenity to this most 
pernicious practice to be accounted for ? In 
our estimation, those who retail spirituous 
liquors on this day, and who afford harbour 
to the sons and daughters of dissipation, 
are pre-eminently guilty. They not only 
neglect the means of grace themselves, but 
they furnish that which unfits and indisposes 
others for worshipping God, either in public 
or private. They poison and pauperize the 
working classes by wholesale. They are 
factors for the devil, and a curse to our 
nation. Though it might be an eqnal sin 
in the sight of God, it would be far less 
injurious to society were the mason to take 
his plummet, his trowel, and his other im- 
plements, and proceed with the building he 
had been erecting the preceding week. 
There is a wo recorded against the man who 
giveth his neighbour drink, that putteth his 
bottle to him, and maketh him drunken ; but 
a tenfold wo shall be the portion of those who 
make a trade of this practice on the sabbath. 
The persons addressed in the fourth com- 
mandment are parents, masters, and magis- 



THE SABBATH. 129 

trates ; and, under and through them, all 
others whatsoever. Hence the following in- 
junction :— 

" Nor thy son, nor thy daughter." — 
Though it is possible that our children 
might work by way of amusement, and 
without being observed by neighbours, or 
censured by ministers ; though they are not 
bound by so many vows and professional 
engagements as we are ; and though their 
own depraved hearts might incline them to 
desecrate, rather than to sanctify, the Lord's 
day ; yet He who made them, and who is 
entitled to their worshipful subjection, de- 
mands their obedience, and holds us respon- 
sible for their compliance. Therefore, as 
we love them, and value his favour, we must 
neither seduce them by our example, nor 
coerce them by our authority, nor permit 
them, through mistaken fondness, to profane 
this holy day. On the contrary, we ought, 
by precept and example ; by the exercise of 
our authority ; by the lure of our love ; by 
the dread of our displeasure ; and by a fre- 
quent and faithful exposition of the law, the 
threatenings, and the promises of God ; to 
9 



130 THE SABBATH* 

encourage, persuade, and constrain them to 
spend it in public worship^ private prayer, 
religious reading, and godly discourse. Our 
own peace and our children's salvation are 
intimately involved in this matter. Juvenile 
delinquency generally commences in some 
form of sabbath profanation ; whereas early 
piety is uniformly fostered and confirmed by 
conscientious sabbath-keeping. If we be- 
gin early, and persevere steadily, in setting 
a consistent example before our children, 
supplying them, at the same time, with 
Scriptural instruction, we may confidently 
hope that, by the blessing of God, they will 
choose him as their portion, and account his 
sabbath a delight. But if we permit them 
to trample on God's authority, by absenting 
themselves from his house, by doing servile 
work, by reading newspapers and novels, or 
by taking Sunday excursions ; then the most 
calamitous consequences, to them and to us> 
may be anticipated. 

" Nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid- 
servants—hi a community like that of the 
Jews, where limited slavery was tolerated,, 
masters might have surmised^ that though 



THE SABBATH. 131 

they and their children were forbidden to 
labour on the sabbath, their domestics, 
whom they had bought with their money, 
or to whom they paid wages for a' term of 
years — whose business it was to obey, and 
who, probably, would rather work than wor- 
ship — might dispense with the law, and pro- 
secute domestic employments. But no such 
license was allowed, " The sabbath was 
made for man ;" for the servant-man, as 
well as for the master-man ; for the maid, 
as well as for her mistress. The conven- 
tional engagements into which we enter with 
one another cannot dissolve the primary re- 
lations we sustain to God, nor free us from 
the obligations which these relations involve. 
Household servants ought, therefore, not 
only to stipulate for a certain rate of wages, 
but for liberty to worship God on his own 
day. The sabbath is theirs for rest and for 
worship ; not theirs to be let out for hire, or 
to be spent in pastime. While it is the duty 
of masters and mistresses to grant their ser- 
vants opportunities to wait on God, servants 
ought to accept of those portions of the sab- 
bath for this purpose which best comport 



132 THE SABBATH. 

with the general convenience of the family 
in which they live. The practice of allow- 
ing servants to spend the sabbath out of their 
master's house is fraught with evil ; and 
ought never to be permitted, except on spe- 
cial occasions, and then for good and sub- 
stantial reasons. To prevent gossip and 
Sunday gadding, as well as to encourage 
punctual attendance and devotional habits, 
masters would do well to provide accommo- 
dation for their domestics, not only in their 
own place of worship, but in their own pew. 
Though the above injunction refers spe- 
cially to hired servants, and such as work on 
their masters' premises, or with their mas- 
ters' cattle, it obviously inculcates, that we 
ought not to employ any who violate the 
sabbath, though they may work in their own 
houses, and on their own account. The 
king of Israel said, " I will not know," or 
approve of, " a wicked person. Mine eyes 
shall be upon the faithful of the land, that 
they may dwell with me. He that walketh 
in a perfect way shall serve me." Were 
Christians, generally, to imitate David in 
this noble resolve; were they invariably to 



THE SABBATH. 133 

prefer and encourage sober, conscientious, 
and religious servants, shopkeepers, carriers, 
and tradesmen ; and were they to discard 
and discountenance drunkards, Socialists, 
and sabbath-breakers, the benefit to the 
church and the world would be great and 
lasting. By acting thus, we may expect to 
be stigmatized as persecutors, and narrow- 
minded bigots, by all who worship the great 
idol — liberalism ; but if we fail to act thus, 
how can we acquit ourselves of the heavier 
charge, of being " partakers of other men's 
sins ?" Most assuredly, if we love God 
more than ourselves ; if his glory be dearer 
to us than our money ; and if we are as im- 
patient of the dishonour which sin casts on 
his name, as we are at the losses to which 
fraud and violence subject us, we shall act 
thus. But, alas ! many masters care not 
how God's work is neglected, provided their 
own be duly performed. Nay, some of 
them, to the scandal of the Christian name, 
refuse to take men into their employ, or to 
encourage them in trade, unless they for- 
mally stipulate to profane the sabbath as 
they may direct, and as circumstances may 



134 THE SABBATH. 

require. Need we wonder if the servants of 
such men rob them, and if the curse of God 
pursues them? 

" Nor thy cattle" — Previously to the in- 
troduction of steam conveyances into this 
country, horses were made extensively sub- 
servient to sabbath-desecration ; pleasure- 
excursions and business-journeys having 
been effected chiefly by their means. The 
injunction under consideration extends to all 
beasts of burden whatsoever; and it was 
added, not only in mercy to them, but as an 
additional check on the sabbath-breaking 
propensities of their proprietors. So far as 
ill health, distance, or the inclemency of the 
weather may render their services necessary, 
to carry us to the house of God, or to the 
beds of the dying, on this day, we may inno- 
cently use them ; but no further. To hire 
them, or to let them out for hire, for the pur- 
poses of trade, for the gratifying of pride, or 
the securing of pleasure, are clearly violations 
of the law of God. 

It is a melancholy consideration, that, in 
this Christian country, abounding with the 
means of grace, thousands of coachmen, 



THE SABBATH. 135 

omnibus and cab drivers, are as effectually 
debarred from the house of God as though 
there were no sabbath kept, no gospel 
preached, and no worship performed in the 
land. We loudly complain of the impo- 
sitions and general wickedness of these men, 
without considering that we are accessaries 
to their evil deeds, as far as we contribute to 
shut them out from the means of salvation, 
by employing them on the sabbath. Some 
of them are alive to their danger, and lament 
the necessity they are under of ruining their 
souls, or of leaving their families to starve. 
Others are as ignorant, and as insensible 
to moral propriety, as the beasts they drive ; 
and, consequently, have no desire to mingle 
in our worshipping assemblies : while many 
strengthen themselves in wickedness by 
arguments drawn from the inconsistencies 
of those who, while they profess to reve- 
rence the sabbath, and to delight in the 
worship of God, pay them for breaking the 
former, and for slighting the latter. The 
Rev. R. Treffry, in his valuable Treatise on 
the Sabbath, tells us of a lady in London, 
who, one sabbath morning, as she was step- 



136 THE SABBATH. 

ping out of a hackney-coach, at the door of 
her place of worship, asked the coachman 
if he ever went to church. " No, ma'am," 
said he ; "I am so very busy in taking 
others there, that I cannot possibly go my- 
self." Another, in Manchester, replied to a 
similar interrogation, though not proposed on 
the sabbath, " I have not been in a place of 
worship for seven years ; nor do I see how 
I can go for seven more, unless ladies and 
gentlemen make up their minds to walk to 
church and chapel." This man not only 
confessed his sin, but he pointed out the 
remedy : yes ! the simple remedy by which 
thousands of our fellow-immortals may be 
emancipated from sabbath slavery, is, for 
"ladies and gentlemen" to use their feet, 
and improve their health, by walking to the 
house of God. With what consistency can 
we profess to love God or our neighbour, 
if we refuse to make this easy effort ? How 
can we stand clear of the blood of these 
men's souls, unless we determine that, as 
far as we are concerned, their Sunday- 
driving shall terminate ? and that we, at 
least, will no more rob them of opportunity 



THE SABBATH. 137 

of -doing their duty to God, their own souls, 
and their families ?"* 

Formerly horses were abused, and the 
sabbath was desecrated to an awful extent 
by the running of stage-coaches. But that 
practice is now nearly superseded by the 
introduction of steam-packets and railway- 
carriages. As far as this change indicates 
the progress of science and mechanical skill, 
and diminishes the demand for animal and 
physical labour, it is cause of joy. But it 
sorely grieves us, that the inventions of 
genius, in connection with the giant agency 
of steam, should be so generally prostituted 
to sabbath-profanation. We grieve, because 
the evil has been increased in the same pro- 
portion as the new agency surpasses the old 
in splendour and in power ; because its con- 
tinuance, in this aggravated form, must 
bring down the curse of God with accumu- 

* We are happy to place it on record, that Lord 
Francis Egerton, with his lady and family, present an 
example to the nobility and gentry in the land ; for, 
except when the weather is unusually stormy, they 
invariably walk from their mansion to the parish 
church. 



138 THE SABBATH. 

lated weight on our beloved country ; be- 
cause it has yoked a new class of men to 
the car of mammon, and made those the 
patrons of sabbath-desecration, who, if the 
thing had been foretold a few years ago, 
would have indignantly said, " Is thy servant 
a dog, that he should do this great thing ?" 
But, alas ! the abhorred event is accomplish- 
ed. The sin of pandering to the sabbath- 
breaking propensities of the w r orldly and the 
gay is no longer left to men who make no 
profession of piety, and who live beyond the 
pale of the Christian church. The melan- 
choly fact cannot be denied, that infidels, 
Socialists, drunkards, and all who are " lovers 
of pleasure more than lovers of God," now 
leave our large towns, by thousands, every 
Lord's-day morning, for distant tea-gardens, 
public-houses, and gaming-tables, in elegant 
carriages, fitted up and propelled at the 
expense of men whom fame describes as 
scientific, patriotic, friends of the poor, ad- 
vocates of national education, and communi- 
cants at the Lord's table. O " tell it not in 
Gath ; publish it not in the streets of Aske- 
lon !" Christ is betrayed in the house of his 



THE SABBATH. 139 

friends ! His law is made void by those 
who profess faith in his divinity, and who 
glory in the grace of his gospel. Members, 
yea, officers, in his church, who in words 
admit the perpetual and universal obligation 
of the moral law, are trampling one of the 
plainest precepts of that law under foot ; 
and, either through the fear of man or igno- 
rance of their duty, or the love of filthy 
lucre, they stand connected with one of the 
most daring systems of sabbath-profanation 
that was ever set up in any Protestant 
country. 

It will not avail these gentlemen — for 
many of whom we have a high personal es- 
teem — to say, the evil complained of is the 
work of a company. What is the company, 
but a number of individuals voluntarily asso- 
ciated for the accomplishment of gainful 
ends, by the adoption of common and ap- 
proved means ? The individuals furnish the 
capital, reap the profits, share the responsi- 
bilities, and appoint the executive. They, 
in fact, constitute the company, which is no- 
thing more nor less than an extensive part- 
nership, into which they freely entered, and 



140 THE SABBATH. 

from which, by selling out, they may retire 
when they please. Nor will it avail the 
shareholders, who are the true proprietors, 
to throw the blame on the directors, and the 
servants they employ. We ask, Who ap- 
points the directors ? In whose name do 
they act ? With whose property do they 
trade ? Who are answerable for the liabi- 
lities into which they enter ? Do those 
shareholders who wish to be regarded as 
sleeping partners, sleep when the profits are 
divided ? Would they sleep, were the direc- 
tors to misappropriate the funds ? or to divide 
the proceeds among their own purses ? The 
guilt of the directors, and the agents they 
employ, i§ great ; but the shareholders are 
far from being innocent. The man who 
hires another to do an act which he knows 
will issue in murder, is himself a murderer, 
as truly as he who administers the poison, 
or who uses the poniard. And so those who 
carry on trade on the Lord's day by deputy 
are, in his sight, sabbath-breakers, to all in- 
tents and purposes. Confederation does not 
annihilate individual identity, nor cancel 
individual obligation. The accessary is, in 



THE SABBATH. 141 

law, responsible for the deeds of the prin- 
cipal. To consent when sinners entice, to 
cast in our lot, and to have one purse with 
them, in bringing evil devices to pass, — are 
acts expressly forbidden in the Scripture. 
Instead of constituting their excuse, it is 
mentioned as an aggravation of guilt, that 
" the kings of the earth set themselves, and 
the rulers take counsel together, against Je- 
hovah, and against his Anointed, saying, Let 
us break their bands asunder, and cast away 
their cords from us." 

But it is said, " The government of the 
country not only sanctions Sunday travelling, 
but enforces it by act of parliament." This 
is true, as far as the transmission of the mail 
is concerned. But, admitting, for a moment, 
that it is wise and proper in the government 
to do this, why should their injunction be 
made a pretext for running trains at those 
hours when there is no mail to be transmit- 
ted ? or for providing accommodation for 
multitudes, not one in a hundred of whom 
can plead either necessity or mercy in justi- 
fication of his journeying ? But we hold, 
that governors are as much bound to obey 



142 THE SABBATH; 

God, as the meanest who are under their 
authority ; and that the best interests of na- 
tions are as intimately bound up with the 
conscientious observance of his laws, as are 
those of individuals. The almost lightning 
speed with which letters, passengers, and 
goods can now be conveyed from one end 
of the kingdom to the other^ completely 
obviates the plea of necessity which was 
formerly urged in defence of Sunday travel- 
ling ; and the arrangements into which the 
government entered with some of the Scot- 
tish companies prove, that the mail-question 
involves no insuperable obstacles to the en- 
tire extinction of the evil. Our governors 
have no personal interest in the transmission 
of the mail on Sunday ; it can afford them 
no personal pleasure to know that it is done ; 
and it is our deep conviction, that were the 
Christian congregations in the land, with 
their ministers, — and the different railway 
companies, with their respective boards of 
directors,— to petition parliament on the sub- 
ject, the iniquity would at once be put down. 
The much-lauded expedient of keeping 
Sunday profits separate from the proceeds 



THE SABBATH. 143 

of the week-day traffic, that they may be re- 
fused, or appropriated to benevolent or reli- 
gious purposes, implies something worse than 
trifling with great and sacred principles. 
We regard it as a direct compromise with 
mammon, a subterfuge for unquiet con* 
sciences, a snare to catch unwary souls, 
a new attempt " to wash the Ethiop white ? 
Anciently the torn, and the lame, and the 
sick were debarred from the altar of God by 
a curse ; and, to the present, no offering can 
find acceptance in his sight, which is not 
clean and unblemished. The popularity and 
commonness of this species of sabbath-de- 
secration afford no justification to its patrons. 
It is just as sinful to convey passengers on 
business-journeys and pleasure-jaunts, as it 
would be to carry cattle to Smithfield mark- 
et ; and it would not be a whit more crimi- 
nal in the farmer to drive manure to his fields 
on Sunday, in a common cart, than it is for 
railway directors to transmit bales of silk 
and chests of bullion in their wagons. 
" Sin is the transgression of the law ;" and 
if the multitude do evil, we are commanded 
not to follow them. The sins of others are 



144 THE SABBATH. 

beacons for our warning, not patterns for our 
imitation. Our obligations to obey are based 
on the indissoluble and personal relations we 
sustain to God ; and the misdeeds of millions 
will not excuse us, if, in a single instance, 
we belie these obligations, and resist his 
claims. His law — not the worldly expe- 
dients and wayward conduct of our fellow- 
men — is our rule of duty ; and as there is 
life in his favour, it is our highest in- 
terest to yield obedience, at all possible 
risks.* 

If the practice we condemn were right, 
it would stand the scrutiny of that day. But 
what shareholder is prepared to stake his 
eternal destiny on the success of the follow- 
ing plea, which contains nearly every point 
of defence which can be urged by its most 
ingenious advocates ? " Lord, it is true, 
our company traded on thy sabbath ; but we 
did it on a magnificent scale, in a scientific 

* Some of the preceding remarks appeared in a 
memorial which the Wesleyan ministers in Manches- 
ter addressed to the directors of the Leeds railway in 
1841, and which was prepared by the writer at the 
request of his brethren. 



THE SABBATH. 145 

manner, and in an age of extraordinary 
commercial enterprise, We did it to reduce 
the expense of travelling, to put down the 
cruelties of horse-carriage conveyance, to 
provide a profitable investment for our sur- 
plus capital, and to keep the trade and com- 
merce of our country in advance of those 
of other nations. Had the concern been 
under our personal management, some of 
us would have suffered the amputation of an 
arm, rather than have desecrated thy day ; 
but, having agreed to merge our individual 
opinions and scruples in the combined wis- 
dom and conscience of the company, we 
were obliged to submit to the majority. The 
whole plan was framed according to act of 
parliament ; and, in carrying it out, we were 
favoured with the patronage of many who 
were accounted wise and pious. Though 
we furnished the capital, others did the work; 
and as for the Sunday profits, they were so 
small, that, after appropriating them for a 
short time to charitable purposes, we suffered 
them to mingle in the common stock. The 
convenience we provided was for others, not 
ourselves ; nothing but necessity ever induced 
10 



146 THE SABBATH, 

us to travel on thy day ; and as for the 
thoughtless crowd who did it from choice, 
we pitied them, and promoted town missions, 
and tract distribution, that they might see 
the error of their ways. Whenever it could 
be done, without incurring great loss, we 
stopped our trains during church hours ; and 
had our servants been religiously disposed, 
they might in most instances have heard one 
sermon at least. As for the workmen who 
wrought on Sunday at our tunnels, and such 
parts of the line as required despatch, we en- 
couraged good men to preach to them, and 
to distribute religious tracts among them, 
after they had finished their toil. Besides 
attending thy house ourselves, some of us 
frequented thy table ; and deep were our 
searchings of heart while we prayed, ' Lord, 
have mercy upon us, and write all these 
thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee/ 
Indeed, the sabbath-breaking part of the 
concern never had the consent of our con- 
science ; and, but for the immense sacrifice 
of property which the step would have in- 
volved, and a hope that the company would 
some time or other abandon the Sunday 



THE SABBATH. 147 

traffic, we should have sold out, regardless 
of reproach." 

We leave those concerned to imagine the 
overwhelming rebuke which such an apology, 
if presented, must draw down from the great 
Lord of the sabbath. That practice which 
will not bear the light of truth now, cannot 
stand the scrutiny of the holy God then. 
The distinctions between right and wrong, 
truth and error, sophistry and argument, 
consistency and inconsistency, are essential 
and eternal ; and God can neither confound 
them nor allow us to confound them with 
impunity. The Judge of all the earth will 
do right. He has not abrogated the sabbath- 
law ; and wo to us, if, by word or deed, 
we bring it into contempt. There are limits 
beyond which he will not permit pride and 
profligacy to proceed, however they may 
be backed by genius, wealth, power, and 
public opinon. Those who profane the sab- 
bath, whether personally or by proxy, whether 
singly or in a confederated character, make 
God their enemy ; and they can expect 
nothing else but that he will curse their 
blessings, and make their sabbath-gains a 



148 THE SABBATH, 

consuming rust to the treasures they were 
intended to increase. It has been said, that 
God infatuates those whom he designs to 
destroy. Without pledging ourselves to the 
truth of the maxim in all cases, and earnestly 
deprecating its fulfilment in the present case, 
we cannot listen to the interested, unscrip- 
tural, and contradictory arguments, which 
are urged by the men who compose our 
railway companies, without perceiving that, 
in their proceedings, expediency outweighs 
principle ; that the opinions of men prepon- 
derate over the laws of God ; that an appeal 
to their purse is much more convincing than 
an appeal to their conscience ; and that the 
dread of losing money is much more influ- 
ential than the terror of enduring " the wrath 
to come." The judgments of God are abroad 
in the earth ; yet who is learning righteous- 
ness ? In a time of profound peace, with 
neither plague nor pestilence in our borders, 
our capitalists are impoverished, commerce 
is stagnant, multitudes of our industrious 
poor are unemployed, our legislators, mer- 
chants, manufacturers, and railway directors, 
are at their wits' end ; and the very expe- 



THE SABBATH. 149 

dieiits by which we hoped to lay up gold as 
the dust have been the means of impoverish- 
ing us. Thus God is demonstrating his 
sovereignty, and calling us to repentance, by 
placing our sins in the light of his counte- 
nance ; yet there is none that calleth upon 
his name, that stirreth tip himself to take 
hold of him, or that owns, "We are con- 
sumed because of our iniquities." Party 
censures party ; second causes, and human 
expedients, are deified ; mammon is preferred 
to God ; and gain, to a good conscience. 
Instead of turning unto him that smiteth us, 
we say, " in the pride and stoutness of our 
heart, The bricks are fallen down ; but we 
will build with hewn stone : the sycamores 
are cut down ; but we will change them into 
cedars." " Who is wise, and he shall un- 
derstand these things ? prudent, and he shall 
know them ? For the ways of the Lord are 
right, and the just shall walk in them ; but 
the transgressors shall fall therein." No 
matter how wealthy and honourable the 
company may be by whom the sanctity of 
the sabbath is invaded ; no matter how gen- 
teel, or how lucrative, the mode of desecra- 



150 THE SABBATH. 

tion may be ; all who prefer the favour of 
God to the honour of men, and the happiness 
of heaven to the torments of hell> must wash 
their hands both of their gains and of their 
guilt, saying, " My soul, come not thou into 
their secret ; with their assembly, mine 
honour, be not thou united." Without de- 
signing to palliate other forms of sabbath- 
breaking, we are bold to say, that the voice 
of God, to the mercantile and trading com- 
munities in this country, is, in reference to 
all such companies, " Come out from among 
them, and be ye separate, and touch not the 
unclean thing." Happy will it be for us, and 
for our posterity, to the third and fourth 
generation, if we obey ; but wo to us, and 
to our beloved country, if, notwithstanding 
multiplied reproofs, we harden our necks. 
" Pride goeth before destruction, and a 
haughty spirit before a fall." 

" Nor the stranger that is within thy 
gates" — This injunction may be understood 
as referring, 

1. To the visiter who sojourns in our 
house. 

Religion enjoins hospitality, and it fosters 



THE SABBATH. 151 

friendship ; but it requires that our friend- 
ships be religious, and that our hospitality 
be administered in the name, and in harmony 
with the law and the glory, of God. It is 
God who sets the solitary in families, as a 
flock. He is the God of the families of the 
whole earth ; and, as their God, he holds 
their heads responsible for the moral conduct 
of all under their roof ; and he will require 
it at their hand, if they permit even visiters 
to profane his holy day. Some of these 
may plead, that it is not their custom to 
keep the sabbath so strictly as we do ; and 
they may think us rude unless we relax our 
Sunday discipline to gratify their love of 
gayety. But the law is the Lord's ; our own 
obligations to obey are imperative ; and we 
possess no power to absolve others from 
bonds equally binding. While, therefore, 
we exercise all the warm-hearted amenities 
of Christian friendship, we must neither, 
through fear or favour, neglect the family 
altar and the house of prayer, nor permit the 
intervals of public worship to be filled up 
with amusements or frivolous discourse. 
Heads of families cannot be too particular 



152 THE SABBATH. 

in this matter. The backsliding of many 
young disciples may be traced to intercourse 
with genteel sabbath-breakers ; and the con- 
version of others has been the result of a 
friendly visit, to a faithful sabbath-keeping 
family. See, then, that, for the honour of 
God, the salvation of your children, and the 
spiritual benefit of the stranger within your 
gates, you resolutely maintain the sanctity 
of the Lord's day. If reflections be at any 
time cast upon you for your fidelity, say, in 
the language of the apostles, "Whether it be 
right in the sight of God to hearken unto you 
more than unto God, judge ye. But we can- 
not but speak the things which we have seen 
and heard." 

But, while the phrase admits of the above 
interpretation, we believe its primary appli- 
cation was, 

2. To the foreigner who sojourned in the 
cities of Israel. 

The cities and towns of Palestine were 
generally surrounded with walls, and de- 
fended by gates ; whereas only a few of 
their dwellings were so secured. They 
themselves were called " brethren ;" and 



THE SABBATH. 153 

the title " stranger" was applied, exclusive- 
ly, to men of other countries. The religious 
observance of the sabbath was intimately 
connected with the honour of Jehovah's 
name, and the best interests of mankind. 
He foresaw, that, if it were abolished, or 
brought into contempt, truth would suffer an 
eclipse, the poor would be oppressed, and 
the mind and manners of the entire com- 
munity would become corrupt. To prevent 
this, he not only prohibited them, their chil- 
dren, their servants, and their cattle, from 
working ; but, aware of their proneness to 
copy the customs of other countries, and of 
their liability to be seduced from his worship, 
by intercourse with irreligious foreigners, he 
added, "Nor the stranger," &c. This clause, 
as we before remarked, affords proof of the 
moral character of the sabbath-law, and of 
the obligation of all nations to observe it, to 
whom it might be revealed. The nature of 
the case requires that we consider this in- 
junction, not only as obligatory on the 
strangers resident in the country who felt 
inclined to obey, but as obliging the magis- 
trates to restrain such as were disposed to 



154 THE SABBATH. 

offend. The magistracy alone could enforce 
obedience in such a case ; and, considering 
the vital importance of the institution, it was 
no less kind than wise in the Almighty to 
guard its sanctity by the double fence of 
magisterial and parental authority. That the 
obedience of the stranger might be cheerful, 
the following promise — which admitted him 
and his children almost to an equality of 
privilege with the Jew — was recorded : — 
" The sons of the stranger, that join them- 
selves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love 
the name of the Lord, to be his servants, 
every one that keepeth the sabbath from 
polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant ; 
even them will I bring to my holy mountain, 
and make them joyful in my house of pray- 
er : their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices 
shall be accepted on mine altar; for mine 
house shall be called a house of prayer for 
all people," Isa. lvi, 6, 7. 

Persuasion and argument are the only 
weapons which individuals or governments 
can innocently employ in enforcing articles 
of belief and modes of worship. But to pre- 
vent open trading on the sabbath — which is 



THE SABBATH. 155 

a manifest invasion of both the temporal and 
spiritual privileges of a Christian community, 
as well as a public insult to almighty God 
— is a very different thing ; and here the 
magistrate may and ought to interfere. — 
" If," says the late Rev. Richard Watson, 
" violations of the sabbath are not to be made 
capital crimes by Christian governors, the 
enforcement of a decent external observance 
of the rest of the sabbath is a lawful use of 
power, and a part of the duty of the Chris- 
tian magistrate." " Governors are sent for 
the punishment of evil-doers, and for the 
praise of them that do well," 1 Pet. ii, 14. 
Were they not to restrain sabbath-desecra- 
tion, they would encourage the bad to make 
prey of the good, and the unscrupulous to 
engross the trade of the conscientious : they 
would, in effect, license atheism, infidelity, 
and profanity ; and thereby wound the vital 
interests of the nation through the side of 
its religion and morality. 

While we rejoice that our Protestant con- 
stitution recognises the right of the poorest 
to choose his place of worship, his creed, and 
his minister; we should grieve to see the 



156 THE SABBATH. 

day when our law did not denounce, as a 
transgressor, the man w r ho, rejecting all 
creeds and modes of worship whatsoever, 
openly traffics on the sabbath. The strangers 
resident in Israel w T ere, for the most part, 
idolaters ; and they might, with some plausi- 
bility, have pleaded exemption, on the ground 
of the vast difference in their religious be- 
lief. But no such plea was admitted by God, 
or the Jewish legislature ; nor ought it to 
be allowed in our land. Unbelief is, in 
itself, a sin against God and his truth ; and, 
being a principal cause of disobedience, it 
cannot be pleaded as its excuse. The sab- 
bath was made for man ; and hence the 
home-born, the stranger, the believer, and 
the unbeliever, were alike commanded to 
rest during its sacred hours. In the history 
of the creation, Moses adduces no argument 
to prove the being of God ; as if he judged 
that those who disputed that fundamental 
truth merited a rebuke rather than a reason. 
In like manner, the command to honour God 
with a seventh part of our time — which, with 
our being, and all our other blessings, he has 
given — carries its own reason with it; and 



THE SABBATH. 157 

the man who pleads conscientious scruples 
against it, proves that infidelity can play the 
hypocrite as well as religion. If men who 
enjoy the shelter of our laws, and who share 
the meliorating influence of our national in- 
stitutions, will perversely transgress a pre- 
cept so just, so merciful, and so vitally con- 
nected with the honour of God, and the 
highest interests of the community ; nothing 
can be more salutary for them and the pub- 
lic than that they should suffer the penalty 
which our law awards. If individuals have 
rights which a Christian magistrate ought to 
protect, so have the nation ; and, of all our 
common rights, the undisturbed enjoyment 
of the ordinances and rest of the sabbath is 
one of the sweetest and dearest. 

While it affords us pleasure, that the 
statutes in which our forefathers recognised 
the universal obligation of the sabbath are 
not repealed, we lament that, in our day, 
they are little more than a dead letter. It 
forms a dark line in the history of the last 
parliament, that they not only neutralized 
the godly endeavours of Sir Andrew Agnew, 
and others, to render these statutes more 



158 THE SABBATH, 

efficient ; but they scouted the attempt with 
unmeasured scorn. In point of legislative 
guarantee, the sabbath question has retro- 
graded in our age. The railway-desecration, 
over which the righteous in town and country 
weep, is carried on under the sanction of 
acts of parliament. The keepers of the 
gin-palaces in London can plead the same 
authority for the iniquity they commit, pro- 
vided they do not vend their health-destroy- 
ing and soul-murdering poisons before a 
certain hour of the day. Notice was given 
last session of a motion for opening the Bri- 
tish Museum to the public on the Lord's 
day ; and should this be effected, it will only 
be consistent for the same honourable mem- 
ber, or some one like-minded, to move, that 
the theatres be opened next. 

These movements in high places have 
produced their natural results elsewhere. 
Numerous lyceum and other reading-rooms 
have been opened in our large towns on this 
day, for newspaper reading and political dis- 
cussion ; than which, we know of no prac- 
tices, short of absolute profanity, that have 
a more direct tendency to secularize the 



THE SABBATH, 159 

mind, obliterate serious impressions, and be- 
get a contempt for the word and ordinances 
of God. That the infidel and profligate, 
who professedly trample truth under foot, 
and have laid the reins on the neck of their 
lusts, should indulge in such practices, is 
no matter of surprise ; but that professing 
Christians should do so, is ground of aston- 
ishment. This, however, is only one of the 
modes in which the Lord's day is desecrated. 
Tea-gardens have, of late years, been mul- 
tiplied ; and, in their season, they exhibit 
scenes of riot on this day not to be described. 
Zoological and botanical gardens, also, draw 
multitudes away from their families, and 
from the house of God ; and, by dissipating 
the mind, and by leading to unhallowed as- 
sociations, they prepare for grosser scenes, 
in places of less reputable resort. Musical 
concerts are held on Sunday evenings, in 
public-houses, of the worst description, at 
which tea, coifee, and spirituous liquors are 
sold, sacred and profane music are impious- 
ly blended, and the praises of Jehovah and 
of his redeeming love are chanted to the 
sound of the viol and the organ, in connec- 



160 THE SABBATH. 

tion with the foul orgies of Bacchus and 
Venus. Subscriptions to sick-clubs and 
political societies are extensively collected 
on Sunday mornings ; business letters are 
written ; stock in trade taken ; shop goods 
are arranged for Monday's sale ; and the 
machinery of factories is repaired, at a rate 
of double wages, to prevent the loss of 
week-day time. Many commercial travel- 
lers so contrive their journeys, that three- 
fourths of their Sundays are spent at sea in 
ships, or in coaches and railway-carriages 
on land : all to save time, and do a " capital 
stroke of business." 

It has been ascertained, that, in Scotland, 
not less than five thousand persons are oc- 
cupied on the sabbath in the post-office ser- 
vice ; and it is computed, that tw T ice that 
number are similarly employed in England. 
The author of " Mammon" estimates the 
number of sabbath-breakers in London alone 
at six hundred and fifty thousand. A few 
years ago, fourteen Sunday newspapers had 
a weekly circulation of ninety thousand 
copies ; and if we suppose that each paper 
was read by only three persons, we have a 



THE SABBATH. 161 

total of two hundred and seventy thousand 
readers of these, the most licentious and 
seditious papers that issue from the British 
press. The railway-carriages of Philadel- 
phia, in the United States, carry nearly four- 
teen thousand individuals every Lord's day 
on errands of business or of pleasure ; in- 
dependently of twenty steamboats which 
regularly leave the harbour for similar pur- 
poses. Thus, at home and abroad, the holy 
sabbath, that monument of divine sovereign- 
ty, creative energy, and redeeming love, — 
that palladium of our liberty and religious 
greatness, — is assaulted, undermined, and 
trampled down. The law of the Lord is 
made void ; public worship is accounted a 
weariness; faithful ministers are reckoned 
disturbers of the peace ; and all who testify 
against the abounding iniquity are stigma- 
tized as narrow-minded bigots, who have 
entered the world too late by at least a 
century. 

" The sabbath, that great cable of our 

future safety, is fast giving way. Strand 

after strand is breaking ; and if we do not 

hasten to strengthen the things which re- 

11 



162 THE SABBATH. 

main, it will soon be too late. The great 
orb of our moral day, the sabbath, is going 
out in our heavens ; its blessed legislation 
is ceasing ; its holy attractions are failing ; 
and the angels of mercy are lifting their 
rustling wings, and saying, ' Let us depart !' 
and already the fire of divine indignation is 
beginning to kindle upon the fuel ourselves 
have heaped up for the day of vengeance. 

" Unless there be an immediate effort to 
preserve the sabbath from desecration, we 
are undone ; the temptation to break it is 
every moment increasing ; and the amount 
and intertwinings of business are such, that 
if the sabbath be once gone, a universal tide 
of worldliness and unsanctified enterprise 
will sweep over every barrier, and the wave 
of moral desolation will roll unresisted over 
what was once the fairest heritage beneath 
the beams of heaven. 

" I come to lift up my voice, and cry in 
your ears, ' Remember the sabbath-day, to 
keep it holy,' amid winds and waves, and 
the hissing of steam, and the rumbling of 
carriages, and smoke and clouds of dust, 
and din of business. You must stop ; you 



THE SABBATH. 163 

must withdraw your capital from establish- 
ments which violate the sabbath. The 
stock of our railway and steamboat lines is 
much of it in "Christian hands. God is ex- 
lending the wealth of his church, and bring- 
ing great masses of our business population 
within her pale. And what is it for ? To 
make the breach between Him and the na- 
tion wider and wider ? I know there is a 
disposition to censure the influence and in- 
terference of ministers and Christians ; but 
rely upon it, that if we Christians break the 
sabbath, there will be no keeping it ; but if 
we observe it ourselves, and resolve that our 
capital and example shall all go one way, 
then we shall preserve it. Heaven has 
thrown our civil immunities into our ow T n 
hands, and we ought at once to form a reso- 
lution of new obedience."* 

This eloquent passage is worthy of its 
author : and with it we conclude this part of 
the subject ; beseeching all who fear God, 
who love their country, and who desire to 
see religion, truth, happiness, and social or- 
der universally diffused, honestly to inquire, 

* Dr. Be eerier. 



164 THE SABBATH. 

in what way and in what degree they have 
failed to sanctify this holy day ; and, without 
conferring with flesh and blood, or listening 
to the pleadings of worldly interest, instantly 
to amend their ways. If they have unwit-* 
tingly entered into partnerships which involve 
them in guilt, let them take the first oppor- 
tunity of confessing their sins, and protesting 
against its Continuance. Let them, while 
there is a probable hope of success, combine 
with the friends of the sabbath in energetic 
and well-directed efforts to extirpate the 
iniquity ; but, as soon as this hope is cut 
off, the partnership must be dissolved, or the 
favour of God will be forfeited. Concern- 
ing this step, ignorance will dogmatize, and 
worldliness will invent plausible excuses for 
unwarrantable delay ; but, as the mind of 
God on the subject is recorded in unambigu- 
ous terms, — as he will not be mocked, — and 
as we shall reap that which we sow, — we 
must not allow ourselves to be deceived. 
" To the law and to the testimony ; if they 
speak not according to this word, it is be- 
cause there is no light in them." Delays 
are dangerous, especially when interest 



THE SABBATH. 165 

pleads against conscience. " Evil commu- 
nications corrupt good manners." There- 
fore, to all who are halting between the per- 
formance of self-denying duty, and gainful 
worldly conformity, we say, " Awake to 
righteousness, and sin not." Do your duty 
to God, your own souls, and your families, 
dauntlessly, in the face of a mocking world, 
despite of pecuniary loss, and regardless of 
the example of those who love the wages of 
unrighteousness. The influence which some 
of you have acquired in commercial circles 
is great ; your station is commanding ; your 
example is influential ; and your responsi- 
bility, therefore, is tremendous. You have 
reached a turning point in your probationary 
circuit ; " God is proving thee to know what 
is in thy heart, whether thou wilt keep his 
commandments or no." Your own eternal 
destiny, the destiny of your children, depen- 
dants, and acquaintances, tremble in the 
balances, while you hesitate; and your de- 
cision will probably turn the scale, for bliss 
or wo. Not only so ; but the purity of the 
church, and the efficiency of her ordinances, 
are at stake. While the sin of sabbath- 



166 THE SABBATH. 

desecration was a sin of the world ; while 
the " Babylonish garment" flaunted on alien 
shoulders ; while the " golden wedge" en- 
riched alien coffers ; God went forth with 
the armies of our Israel : but if the wedge 
and the garment be coveted, and kept in the 
camp; if we, who are called by the name 
of the God of Israel, do after the abomi- 
nations of the people of the land ; then 
the Lord our God will forsake us, the tide 
of victory will be turned against us, faintness 
of heart will come over us ; and, instead 
of dividing the spoil, we shall suffer all the 
terror, confusion, and ignominy of discom- 
fiture and retreat. Both God and man must 
hold us in derision, if, while we repel from 
the Lord's table the barber who shaves, the 
baker who bakes, the engineer who conducts 
an engine, the clerk who sells railway tickets, 
and the widow woman who deals in groce- 
ries on this holy day, we permit gentlemen 
to enjoy the fellowship of saints, though 
they hold shares in, and direct the affairs of, 
companies which desecrate the sabhath by 
wholesale. And if we exclude none, but 
wink at the iniquity under all its forms, and 



THE SABBATH. 167 

among all its practitioners, then is " the 
beauty of holiness" compromised ; and, with 
it, "the glory," and its accompanying "de- 
fence," will assuredly evanish. 

These are not the notes of sedition, but 
the warnings of a devoted and self-sacrificing 
loyalty ; and we implore our readers to look 
at the whole subject in the light of Scripture, 
and in its direct bearings upon the present 
belligerent circumstances of the church. — ■ 
Look at the resuscitated energies and con- 
centrated forces of Popery, at home and 
abroad ; at the deep-laid and expensive 
schemes which infidelity is carrying out for 
the subversion of truth, order, religion, and 
morality ; at the unseemly divisions, and 
soul-destroying errors, which distract Pro- 
testant churches ; at the visible tokens of 
divine displeasure which rest upon our trad- 
ing and commercial interests ; at the wants 
of the heathen world, and the humiliating 
proofs which are, in continuance, given of 
our inability to meet them ; look, we say, at 
these things, and judge whether it be not 
mad and suicidal, as well as impious, for 
members of the church, under such circum- 



168 THE SAB HATH o 

stances, to provoke God further, by perse- 
vering in practices which are manifest vio- 
lations of his law. 

We love science ; and therefore we grieve 
to see it made the minister of sin. We love 
Christian consistency ; and therefore we 
mourn to see it sacrificed at the shrine of 
mammon. We love our country;; and there- 
fore we tremble to see millions of its money y 
and tens of thousands of its sons and 
daughters, devoted to confederacies which 
unblushingly publish their rival schemes of 
sabbath-profanation in placards and news- 
papers.- This is no lime for cant or compli- 
ment ; plain, unexaggerated truth must be 
spoken, if, peradventure, the Lord may grant 
us repentance, and " turn the fierceness of 
his wrath away from us/' We joyfully 
acknowledge that our sabbath is disencum- 
bered of all merely Jewish restrictions ; but 
we protest against the inference, that, there- 
fore, we are at liberty to prostitute it to pur- 
poses of pleasure or of profit. Are we to be 
ungrateful because God is good ? Are oar 
obligations diminished by the multiplication 
of his mercies ? Do we owe him less than 



THE SABBATH, 169 

the Jews, because he has given us more? 
Are we to take Antinomian liberties with his 
law because he has superadded to it his gos- 
pel ? If we may not attribute it to ignorance, 
does it not look exceedingly like hypocrisy 
to plead the spirituality of our dispensation, 
and our obligations to universal holiness, as 
an argument for relaxing the obvious mean- 
ing of the sabbath-law ; and to argue, that, 
because God is to be found everywhere, it 
is of small importance whether we worship 
him in his " house of prayer," or in the tem- 
ple of nature ; at his table, or in a railway- 
carriage ? "I speak as unto wise men ; judge 
ye what I say." " The wise shall inherit 
glory ; but shame shall be the promotion of 
fools." 

It is now our design, by way of conclusion, 
to give the serious reader a brief plan for 
keeping the sabbath holy ; and we therefore 
observe, the sanctification of the sabbath im- 
plies, 

5. That we spend the whole day in the 
public and private exercises of religion. 

God enjoins, not simply that we rest, but 
that we keep a holy rest. We are to cease 



170 THE SABBATH, 

from worldly things, to the intent we may 
devote ourselves to the contemplation and 
pursuit of heavenly things. Were we merely 
to rest from our own work, we should keep 
the sabbath idly ; but our duty is, by dili- 
gence in God's work, to keep it holy. Idle- 
ness is a sin on any day, much more on the 
Lord's day. Rest from toil is the sabbath 
of the brute ; whereas rest in God, through 
the medium of religious exercises, constitutes 
the sabbath of the saint. 

" I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." 
Memorable and instructive words ! Though 
the beloved disciple was an exile and a pri- 
soner, on the convict isle of Patmos, for the 
word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus 
Christ ; though he was shut out from public 
ordinances, from the fellowship of saints, and 
from all the blessings of freedom, he forgot 
not the day which commemorated his Lord's 
victory over death and hell. Deprived of 
the privilege of preaching, he had conse- 
crated the day to meditation and prayer; 
and, while thus employed, the Holy Spirit 
came upon him with plenary light and 
power. He heard the voice of God, he 



THE SABBATH. 171 

saw the visions of God, he held converse 
with the angels of God, and his soul was 
rapt into an ecstasy of reverential awe, of 
humble love, and of divine desire. He be- 
held his Lord, in his glorified humanity, 
standing " in the midst of the golden candle- 
sticks ; and he had in his right hand seven 
stars : and out of his mouth went a sharp 
two-edged sword ; and his countenance was 
as the sun shining in his strength. And 
when I saw him," says the apostle, " I fell 
at his feet as dead. And he laid his right 
hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not ; I 
am the first and the last : I am he that liveth, 
and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for 
evermore, Amen ; and have the keys of hell 
and of death." O glorious truths ! O en- 
rapturing sight ! How confirmatory of the 
Deity, the atonement, the resurrection, and 
the supreme headship of Christ in his 
church ! Happy apostle ! who on the 
Lord's day saw the Lord himself; felt the 
strengthening energy of his pierced hand ; 
beheld, in prophetic vision, the final triumph 
of his cause ; and, by a thousand tokens of 
love, was reassured that he and his fellow- 



172 THE SABBATH, 

disciples fulfilled his sovereign pleasure, in 
keeping the first day of the week as the 
Christian sabbath. 

Such visions and revelations we may not 
hope for. But there is a sense in which we 
also may be "in the Spirit" on this holy day; 
may behold the glory of our Lord ; may hear 
his voice ; may stand in his presence ; and 
may be strengthened with his right hand. 
"Again I say unto you, That if two of you 
shall agree on earth as touching anything 
that they shall ask, it shall be done for them 
of my Father which is in heaven. For where 
two or three are gathered together in my 
name, there am I in the midst of them." 
Matt, xviii, 19, 20. "Whatsoever ye shall 
ask the Father in my name, that will I do, 
that the Father may be glorified in the Son." 
" I will pray the Father, and he shall give 
you another Comforter, that he may abide 
with you for ever ; even the Spirit of truth ; 
whom the world cannot receive, because it 
seeth him not, neither knoweth him : but ye 
know him ; for he dwelleth with you, and 
shall be in you. I will not leave you com- 
fortless : I will come unto you." John xiv, 



THE SABBATH. 173 

16-18. These promises are the portion of 
all believers, and they belong to all ages. 
Never do we so specially meet in his name, 
as when, on his day, we commemorate his 
resurrection, rely on the merits of his death, 
acknowledge his kingly power, and worship 
him in union with the Father and the Holy 
Ghost. To be " in the Spirit on the Lord's 
day," ought to be our supreme concern ; 
and, as a means of securing this, we recom- 
mend — 

Early rising. Each moment of our pro- 
bationary term is precious ; but our sabbath 
moments are the most precious. As the 
week generally takes its character, for good 
or evil, from the manner in which its sab- 
bath has been spent ; so the character of our 
sabbaths greatly depends on the improvement 
or non-improvement of their morning hours. 
This admits of an easy solution. As soon 
as we awake, we are called to make a new 
election between God and mammon, between 
things divine and thoughts of earth, between 
holy self-denial and fleshly indulgence ; and 
our subsequent spirituality and power de- 
pend, in a high degree, on the promptitude 



174 THE SABBATH. 

with which we choose the former, and reject 
the latter. Morning impressions are often 
like those of youth — indelible. As the 
rising sun shoots his bright beams upward, 
tinging the clouds with purple, and gilding 
the mountain-tops with golden hues ; so 
ought we, on this hallowed morn, to send 
up our virgin thoughts and morning songs to 
the great Lord of the sabbath, to whom we 
owe our redemption, and with whom is 
" the residue of the Spirit." Let us, as we 
spurn the bed of sloth, call to remembrance 
his precious death, his glorious resurrection 
and ascension, the majesty in which he now 
reigns, the prevalent intercession he carries 
on before the throne, and his glorious ap- 
pearing to judge the world. Let us " praise 
the Trinity adored" for the mercies of the 
night, for the blessings of a new day, for the 
institution of the sabbath, and for the pros- 
pect of assembling with the faithful in the 
life-giving ordinances of the gospel. Let us 
meditate on the perfections of the glorious 
Being we are about to worship, on the holy 
place in which we have to appear, and on 
the solemn responsibilities which the posses- 



THE SABBATH, 175 

sion of sabbath-privileges involves. As soon 
as we are dressed, let us fall down on our 
knees, and pray that no vain thoughts may 
lodge within us, that " all carnal affections 
may die in us, and that all things belonging 
to the Spirit may live and grow in us ;" that 
our past sins may be blotted out, that our 
persons and worship may be accepted in the 
Beloved, and that we may have grace to 
" receive with meekness the engrafted word 
which is able to save our souls ;" that a door 
of utterance may be given to the ministers 
of the gospel, that they may open their mouth 
boldly to make known the mystery of the 
gospel ; so that, through them, the stout- 
hearted may be made to tremble, the mourn- 
ers may be comforted, and the righteous 
built up on their most holy faith. 

To the exercises of prayer, praise, and 
devout meditations, should be added Scrip- 
ture reading. In this duty our chief concern 
should be, not how much we can read, but 
how well. Marginal readings should be 
marked, parallel passages compared, and 
prayer should be intermingled with the 
whole. If we are unencumbered with do- 



176 THE SABBATH. 

mestic and official duties, we shall find our 
reward in attending the morning prayer 
meeting. All those in our societies who 
have shone in the ways of religion, and who 
have been eminent for consistent holiness 
and extensive usefulness, prized these early 
services. It was in them they first ventured 
to pray in public ; and with them were as- 
sociated in their memories sweet recollections 
of early friendships, divine baptisms, and 
extensive revivals. With the habit of early 
rising which these meetings tended to foster, 
they contributed, under God, to mellow their 
devotional feelings, to confirm their religious 
decision, and to prepare them for receiving 
the word of the. kingdom into good and 
honest hearts. To our young people we, 
therefore, most earnestly and affectionately 
recommend them, as an antidote against 
sloth and self-indulgence, as a certain means 
of doing and receiving good, and as an effi- 
cient preparative for the solemnities and pri- 
vileges of public worship. 

To those heads of families on whom the 
domestic arrangements of the sabbath morn- 
ing devolve, we would say, In prudent fore- 



THE SABBATH. 177 

sight, in godly order, and in early rising, be 
ensamples to your respective households. 
Let your esteem for the day, and your reve- 
rence for its Lord, be apparent in the clean- 
liness of your houses, in the neatness of your 
dress, in the subdued tones of your voice, in 
the tranquillity of your spirits, in the kindness 
of your carriage, and in the edifying and 
evangelical tenor of your conversation. In 
the preparation of food, and the giving out of 
garments, labour to maintain a devotional 
frame of mind, a single eye, and a lively 
sense of the presence and love of God. 
Having despatched indispensable duties of 
this kind, with zealous haste collect all the 
members of your family around the altar of 
God ; and be sure you suffer none to absent 
themselves on the ground of dislike to reli- 
gion, pleasurable projects, or selfish and in- 
dependent plans. At this service let the 
praises of God be sung with ardour, and the 
Scriptures be read with reverence. If you 
have a brief Commentary at hand, read it in 
connection with the text ; or if a pertinent 
remark strike your own mind, give it utter- 
ance, and trust God for its application. In 
12 



178* THE SABBATH, 

your intercessions and thanksgivings inter- 
weave the Scriptures you have read with the 
circumstances of the family, the events of 
the past week, the state of the church, and 
the affairs of the nation. Approach the Fa- 
ther through the Son • and be as free in peni- 
tential confessions as you are fall in grateful 
acknowledgments. Crave the forgiveness of 
sins, in unwavering assurance that Christ 
died for your offences ; and wrestle for sup- 
plies of grace, to effect the renewal of your 
minds, and enable you to perfect "-holiness 
in the fear of the Lord." Plead for the 
church in all its sections, for your country in 
all its interests, for the world with all its in- 
habitants ; and pray, especially, for your 
ministers, that they may lead the flock into 
green pastures, and beside the still waters ; 
and that the great end of the ministry, the 
salvation of the sotil, may be accomplished 
in you, and in all under your care. 

When you rise from your knees, take oc- 
casion to caution your family against worldly 
reading and trifling conversation. Place 
suitable books in their hands, enjoin atten- 
tion to secret prayer, and timely preparation 



THE SABBATH. 179 

for public worship, Late attendance on the 
house of God is a most disreputable prac- 
tice, and we fear it is a growing evil in our 
day. It bespeaks a defective system of 
family government, a low state of personal 
piety, and a want of reverence for God, his 
ordinances, and his authority. It argues a 
want of self-respect, and a criminal indiffer- 
ence to the comfort of our ministers, and the 
spiritual interests of our fellow^worshippers. 
It indicates great ignorance of the nature of 
Christian worship, the extent of Christian 
obligation, and the worth of Christian privi- 
leges. If, therefore, you value your own 
and your family character, if you reverence 
God, if you would not desecrate his house, 
nor distract his worshippers, nor grieve his 
ministers, nor incur his curse, be early in his 
sanctuary. Having ascertained how long it 
will take to walk leisurely to your place of 
worship, make it imperative on the members 
of your household that they be ready to ac- 
company you at the appointed time. 

Before you leave your dwellings, enter 
your closet, and pray to your Father who 
seeth in secret, that he would grant you the 



180 THE SABBATH. 

preparation of the heart and the answer of 
the tongue ; that he would go with you to 
his temple, and there bless you with an un- 
derstanding heart, a retentive memory, and 
an appropriating faith. On your way avoid 
worldly conversation as you would fellow- 
ship with a fiend ; and, as a guard against 
worldly thoughts, repeat a psalm, or ejacu- 
late heavenly aspirations after the presence 
and benediction of God. When you reach 
the porch of the sanctuary, tread lightly, and 
say in your inmost soul, " How amiable are 
thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts ! Blessed 
are they that dwell in thy house : they will 
be still praising thee." As you approach 
your seat, say, " How dreadful is this place ! 
This is none other but the house of God, and 
this is the gate of heaven:" or, " Praise 
waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion ; and unto 
thee shall the vow be performed." When 
you have reverently given God thanks for 
bringing you to his house again, and im- 
plored his aid in the different branches of his 
service, compose your thoughts, and wait in 
solemn silence the commencement of his 
worship. 



THE SABBATH. 181 

In singing our beautiful hymns, recollect 
you address God, as truly as when, on your 
bended knees, you pour out your hearts be- 
fore him in prayer. Though their subjects 
are so varied, that they describe every state 
and shade of feeling which intervenes be- 
tween the depths of penitential wo and the 
most triumphant and rapturous anticipations 
of coming glory ; they are all, with only a 
few exceptions, direct addresses to God. 
You cannot, therefore, allow your thoughts 
to wander, or your affections to grovel on 
earthly objects, without being guilty of offer- 
ing " the sacrifice of fools." Sing with your 
might, and hold that irreligious gentility in 
abhorrence which accounts it vulgar to lift 
up the voice with the congregation in the 
praise of his excellent grace. While, how- 
ever, you sing with spirit, be careful to sing 
in unison ; and guard against formality by 
endeavouring, in every song, to glorify the 
great Three One with the melody of the 
voice, the affection of the heart, and the 
homage of the understanding. 

During public prayer devoutly kneel, or 
reverently stand ; and, either by silent assent, 



182 THE SABBATH. 

or an audible " amen," unite in the petitions 
which the minister presents in the name of 
the congregation. Remember you are sin- 
ners in the sight of God, and can claim 
nothing on the ground of merit at the hand 
of God. Endeavour to obtain abasing views 
of your character and conduct ; and be at 
pains to stir up penitential feelings and 
grateful emotions in your hearts. Prayer 
is the offering up of the desires of the heart 
unto God. Where there is no desire after 
God, there is no prayer ; and even our de- 
sires must be regulated by the written word, 
and be presented in exclusive reliance on the 
atonement and intercession of our divine 
Surety. If you would worship with an un- 
distracted heart, resist all temptations to let 
the eye wander ; and endeavour to feel in 
your hearts each petition you utter with your 
lips. Believe that God is high ; that he is 
propitious, through the Son of his love ; that- 
effectual, fervent prayer availeth much ; and 
that he can enlighten, convince, and convert 
the whole congregation with as much ease 
as he can change the heart of an individual. 
Expect that he will answer while you are 



THE SABBATH. 183 

yet speaking, by sending showers of blessing 
on the whole catholic church, and by making 
his gospel the power of God to the salvation 
of all that are under its sound. 

In hearing the word, recollect that your 
business is not to judge, but to learn ; not to 
admire the servant, but to worship his Lord ; 
not to criticise the manner of the messenger, 
but to embrace his message. Bear in memory 
that you are not only in God's house, but in 
his presence ; and that the thoughts of your 
heart, and the frame of your mind, are as 
obvious to his eye as are the features of your 
face, or the posture of your body. The 
gospel is a proclamation of pardon to the 
guilty, of good tidings to the meek, and of 
deliverance to the captives ; it invites the 
poor, the halt, the maimed, the lame, and 
the blind, to a royal banquet ; it is, there- 
fore, addressed to you ; and your life and 
happiness, in time and eternity, depend on 
your prompt compliance. Hear in faith, 
with self-application, in the spirit of prayer, 
and with a firm determination to obey. Re- 
collect that for your gospel opportunities you 
will have to give a strict account ; that each 



18 i THE SABBATH. 

sermon you hear may be your last ; and that 
the ministers who preach Christ crucified 
will be to you either the " savour of death 
unto death, or of life unto life." Guard, 
therefore, against ungrounded prejudices, 
and capricious preferences ; esteem each 
of your ministers very highly in love for 
his work's sake ; endure sound doctrine, and 
avoid fellowship with those who, " after their 
own lusts, heap to themselves teachers, 
having itching ears." Let your home ar- 
rangement be such, that you can always stay 
till the conclusion of the service ; and then 
silently and reverently depart, with the bene- 
diction of God resting on your consecrated 
hearts. 

As soon as you reach your dwellings, re- 
tire for a few minutes to meditate on what 
you have heard, and to pray that it may 
dwell in you "not in word only, but in 
power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much 
assurance." When you meet your house- 
holds at the family board, be cheerful, and 
endeavour to make them happy while par- 
taking of the bounties of Providence. Sun- 
day ought to be a privileged day in food, in 



THE SABBATH. 185 

clothes, and in family fellowship. The 
trials and crosses of the past week should 
be forgotten. The grace of redemption, the 
kind interventions of Providence, the pro- 
gress of the work of God in the earth, the 
virtues of the Lord's people, and the beauties 
of creation, ought to form the themes of your 
sabbath-day discourse. As you value the 
favour of God, and desire the salvation of 
your children, put down every thing like 
evil-speaking and religious gossip. The 
most impressive parts of "the sermon ought 
to be repeated, and each member of the 
family group should be encouraged to advert 
to that part which most interested himself. 
The regular repetition of these conversation- 
al exercises will strengthen the memory, 
impress the heart, increase knowledge, and 
inspire confidence between you and the dif- 
ferent members of your family. 

For the afternoon no general plan can be 
laid down. Those who have but few oppor- 
tunities for improving their minds, and at- 
tending to the duties of the closet, during 
the week, will do well to spend it in religious 
reading, meditation, and prayer ; with which 



186 THE SABBATH. 

exercises they may profitably intermingle 
tract distribution, and visits to the beds of the 
sick and dying. Servants who are preclud- 
ed from attending morning worship ought, 
by all means, to spend the afternoon in the 
house of God, and in the fellowship of the 
saints. Those who devote this part of the 
day to the religious instruction of the chil- 
dren of the poor and profligate, render a 
most acceptable service to God and his 
church. Sunday-school tuition involves a 
great amount of self-denial ; but when it is 
conducted on religious principles, and with a 
direct reference to the glory of God and the 
salvation of the children's souls, the benefit, 
both to the teacher and the taught, will be 
great and endless. To such of our readers 
as have devoted themselves to this arduous 
vocation we would say, Watch against dis- 
traction, irritation, and despondence ; pre- 
serve in your soul the fervour of a deep- 
toned piety ; draw your instructions from 
the book of God, and let them be imbued 
with, and enforced by, the love of Christ ; 
be punctual, be faithful, be prayerful, and 
rest not satisfied till you see your scholars 



THE SABBATH. 187 

" clothed and in their right mind, sitting at 
the feet of Jesus." 

In those families where the children do 
not attend school, the father, or, in case he 
be irreligious, or officially engaged, the mo- 
ther, ought to take them apart for religious 
conversation, prayer, and catechetical in- 
struction. Thousands and tens of thousands 
will have cause to bless God through eternity 
for maternal counsel and prayer, in the secret 
chamber, on the Sunday afternoon. A mo- 
ther's eloquence is all but irresistible ; and 
her influence, when consecrated to the Re- 
deemer, and perseveringly employed in his 
name, for the conversion of her children, is 
sure, sooner or later, to be crowned with 
success. These afternoon exercises, how- 
ever, must be so ordered, that the family 
may be duly present at the commencement 
of the evening worship ; concerning which, 
the advices given in connection with the 
morning service will apply. 

At the close of the day, the young, and 
such as have their time at their own com- 
mand, ought to retire, either to their chamber, 
or to some secluded spot, for the purpose of 



188 THE SABBATH. 

reviewing their conduct and demeanour be- 
fore God and man ; of calling back to their 
recollection the truths they have heard ; of 
humbling themselves for their conscious de- 
fects ; and of offering devout thanksgivings 
for the mercies and privileges they have en- 
joyed. With renewed repentance for what 
has been said or done amiss, there must be 
a fresh application to the blood of sprinkling. 
And that the out-goings of our evenings and 
mornings may rejoice together, let us repeat 
our acts of consecration, and, committing the 
keeping of body and soul to God, let us say 
with David, " I will both lay me down in 
peace, and sleep : for thou, Lord, only 
makest me to dwell in safety." 

Heads of families ought to endeavour to 
make the concluding hours of the sabbath 
pleasant and profitable to all under their care. 
Servants and children should be congregated 
together. Shy distrust and lordly reserve 
should be banished from the circle ; and all 
should be encouraged to join in singing hymns, 
in spiritual discourse, in Scripture reading, 
and in prayer. At such a time, and in such 
circumstances, the parent and master, who 



THE SABBATH. 189 

has been " in the Spirit on the Lord's day," 
must feel his heart warmed and enlarged ; 
and, anxious to diffuse the peace and joy 
which soothe and animate his own breast, he 
will delight to bless his household, saying, 
" The Lord bless thee, and keep thee ; the 
Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and 
be gracious unto thee ; the Lord lift up his 
countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." 
This is to keep the sabbath holy ; and they 
that do so shall in nowise lose their reward. 
The blessing of God that maketh rich, and 
is free from added sorrow, shall descend on 
them and their families, on their temporal 
and eternal interest, on the purposes of their 
hearts, and on the labours of their hands. 

In conclusion, it is manifest that the law 
of the sabbath remains uncancelled ; that its 
proper business is the worship of God ; and 
that its leading design is the diffusion of 
truth, and the salvation of men. Whatever 
labours or recreations, therefore, are incon- 
sistent with this design, and tend to indispose 
us for this service, are clearly sinful — though 
in themselves, and when practised on other 
days, they may be innocent. If we are not 



190 THE SABBATH. 

to find our own pleasure, nor speak our own 
words, on this day-— but to " call it a delight, 
the holy of the Lord, honourable ;" then it 
follows, that it is a sin to employ any part 
of it in painting or pencilling ; in singing 
carnal songs ; in telling idle stories ; in con- 
versing about politics, and trading transac- 
tions ; or in reading newspapers, novels, 
plays, and profane history. None of these 
exercises have any connection w r ith the wor- 
ship of God ; some of them are utterly in- 
imical to the spirit of piety, and all of them 
are manifest infractions on the sanctity of the 
sabbath. 

In many families, where God has an altar, 
the evenings of the Lord's day are fearfully 
desecrated by worldly discourse. Relatives 
and near neighbours collect : and, after a 
few pious preliminary topics have been 
touched, they slide, by degrees, into a free 
conversation about politics, prices, and pass- 
ing events : and, ere they break up, they fix 
the time of projected journeys, repeat the 
scandal of the week, and discuss the cha- 
racters of magistrates and ministers, to the 
infinite damage of the souls of their servants 



THE SABBATH. 391 

and children. This is a soul-destroying and 
a God-dishonouring custom. It has indeed 
an air of friendship to man, but it betokens 
enmity to God. If any of our readers have 
opened their houses for such gatherings, or 
have mingled in them, we entreat them, as 
they regard the honour of God, the credit 
of religion, and the salvation of their fami- 
lies, to give them up at once and for ever. 
It matters not whom you offend, or what 
reproach you incur, the practice must be 
renounced, or the curse of the Lord will be 
in your house. 

The practice of walking out into the 
country, though not essentially sinful, (pro- 
vided the worship of God be not neglected,) 
is, to say the least, highly inexpedient, on the 
part of those who fear God. We admit, that 
the sight of Jehovah's works may assist us in 
forming lofty conceptions of his perfections, 
and in approaching his throne with aug- 
mented confidence : but, as we are sur- 
rounded with sabbath-breakers, to whom we 
cannot explain our motives, nor tell the se- 
crets of our hearts, and who are sure to jus- 
tify their sinful excursions by an appeal to 



192 THE SABBATH. 

our brief meditative walks ; we are bound, 
alike by regard for the glory of God, and 
love to the souls of men, to abstain from that 
which, under other circumstances, we might 
have done without condemnation. " Let no 
man put a stumbling-block, or an occasion to 
fall, in his brother's way ;" " Let not, then, 
your good be evil spoken of ;" are apostolic 
precepts, which have a direct bearing on the 
case in hand. To walk .or ride out, on pre- 
tence that health cannot otherwise be pre- 
served, implies a reflection on God — as if 
obedience to his law were incompatible with 
the enjoyment of his providential blessings. 
Thousands have ascribed their religious de- 
clension, and subseo^ent ruin, to Sunday 
walks. Indeed, we know no practice which 
more rapidly leads to the obliteration of se- 
rious impressions, and to the depravation of 
principle, than that of habitual Sunday walk- 
ing Those w T ho extol the beauties of nature, 
and magnify the advantages to be derived 
from studying her lessons, as portrayed in 
the " cloud-capped mountain," the verdant 
valley, the winding stream, and the forest 
foliage, generally despise the beauty of 



THE SABBATH. 193 

Christian holiness, and scoff at the doctrines 
of revealed religion. As is their zeal for 
liberalizing the sabbath-law, such is their 
negligence in practising the Christian vir- 
tues. With them the principles of morality 
are conventional ; Christian experience is 
enthusiasm ; the preaching of the gospel is 
an expensive expedient, which might be well 
merged in a general system of education ; 
and the God of nature supplants the God 
of grace, both in their creed and in their 
worship. 

Were this to be the last stroke of our pen, ) 
and had we reached the last moment of our 
life, we should employ both the one and the 
other in enforcing on our readers the divine 
injunction, " Remember the sabbath-day, to 
keep it holy." For if the threatenings of 
God are to be believed; if all history is not 
a lie ; if it be notorious, that genteel sabbath- 
breakers are totally destitute of Christian 
experience ; and if the confessions which 
the profligate have made in our jails, and on 
our gibbets, cannot be invalidated ; then the 
face of the Lord is set against them that turn 
the sabbath into a day of pastime, or of gain- 
13 



194 • THE SABBATH. 

ful toil : and, on the other hand, if the pro- 
mises of God are true ; if the concurrent 
voice of sacred and profane history is to be 
received ; if the testimony of righteous kings, 
just judges, godly bishops, and the holiest 
men, in all lands, is entitled to credit ; and 
if the joyous experience, the domestic happi- 
ness, the sanctified prosperity, and the peace- 
ful and triumphant deaths of myriads of God's 
people, are to be regarded as evidences of 
his favour, then it is demonstrated, that God 
loves, honours, and saves all those who " re- 
member the sabbath to keep it holy." 

We have now done ; and, while thankful 
for the opportunity of bearing testimony on 
such a subject, we earnestly pray that the 
great Lord of the sabbath may write his law 
on all hearts. To dispense reproof is not 
our delight ; and if faithful love could have 
calculated on a cure by milder means, stern 
rebuke would have been spared. The de- 
tached form in w r hich our observations ori- 
ginally appeared, no doubt tended to weaken 
their moral effect ; and though conscious that 
they can lay little claim to originality, we 
venture to request such of our readers as we 



THE SABBATH. 195 

have failed to convince, to give them a se- 
cond and consecutive perusal. The evil we 
have exposed is great, growing, and popular ; 
and for the freedom with which ^ve have de- 
nounced it, we offer no apology, save the 
paramount regard we bear to the truth, and 
the pity we feel for the souls of those who 
have fallen under the demoralizing influence 
of error. From the censures of men, we 
appeal to the decision of God. Had we not 
been firmly persuaded that " the battle is the 
Lord's," oar " sling," and our " five smooth 
stones," would still have remained in the 
privacy of the " scrip," and in the bed of the 
"brook." Our prayer, from the beginning, 
has been, that we might neither err through 
ignorance, nor keep back aught through fear 
or faithlessness : and our desire now is, that 
the great Lord of the sabbath would establish 
and bless whatever bears the stamp of truth ; 
but that each sentence which savours of 
error may be neutralized, forgotten, and dis- 
regarded. 



THE SABBATH. 197 



OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH. 



The following is the testimony of John Richard Farre, 
M. D., of London, a physician of great eminence, before 
a committee of the British House of Commons in 1833, 
on the observance of the sabbath : — 

" I have practised as a physician between thirty and 
forty years ; and, during the early part of my life, as the 
physician of a public medical institution, I had charge 
of the poor in one of the most populous districts of Lon- 
don. I have had occasion to observe the effect of the 
observance and non-observance of the seventh day of 
rest during this time, I have been in the habit, during 
a great many years, of considering the uses of the sab- 
bath, and of observing its abuses. The abuses are 
chiefly manifested in labour and dissipation. Its use, 
medically speaking, is that of a day of rest. As a day 
of rest, I view it as a day of compensation for the inad- 
equate restorative power of the body under continued 
labour and excitement. A physician always has respect 
to the preservation of the restorative power ; because, if 
once this be lost, his healing office is at an end. A phy- 
sician is anxious to preserve the balance of circulation, 
as necessary to the restorative power of the body. The 
ordinary exertions of man run down the circulation 
every day of his life ; and the first general law of nature, 
by which God prevents man from destroying himself, is 
the alternating of day and night, that repose may 
succeed action. But, although the night apparently 



198 THE SABBATH. 

equalizes the circulation, yet it does not sufficiently re- 
store its balance for the attainment of a long life. 
Hence, one day in seven, by the bounty of Providence, 
is thrown in as a day of compensation, to perfect, by 
its repose, the animal system. You may easily deter- 
mine this question, as a matter of fact, by trying it on 
beasts of burden. Take that fine animal, the horse, 
and work him to the full extent of his powers every day 
in the week, or give him rest one day in seven, and you 
will soon perceive, by the superior vigour with which he 
performs his functions on the other six days, that this 
rest is necessary to his well-being. Man, possessing a 
superior nature, is borne along by the very vigour of his 
mind, so that the injury of continued diurnal exertion 
and excitement on his animal system is not so immedi- 
ately apparent as it is in the brute ; but, in the long run, 
he breaks down more suddenly ; it abridges the length 
of his life, and that vigour of his old age which (as to 
mere animal power) ought to be the object of his 
preservation. I consider, therefore, that, in the bounti- 
ful provision of Providence for the preservation of human 
life, the sabbatical appointment is not, as it has been 
sometimes theologically viewed, simply a precept par- 
taking of the nature of a political institution, but that it 
is to be numbered among the natural duties, if the 
preservation of life be admitted to be a duty, and the 
premature destruction of it a suicidal act. This is said 
simply as a physician, and without reference at all to 
the theological question ; but if you consider further the 
proper effects of real Christianity, namely, peace of 
mind, confiding trust in God, and good-will to man, you 
will perceive in this source of renewed vigour to the 
mind, and through the mind to the body, an additional 



THE SABBATH. 199 

spring of life imparted from this higher use of the sab- 
bath as a holy rest. Were I to pursue this part of the 
question, I should be touching on the duties committed 
to the clergy : but this I will say, — that researches in 
physiology, by the analogy of the working of Provi- 
dence in nature, will show that the divine commandment 
is not to be considered as an arbitrary enactment, but as 
an appointment necessary to man. This is the position 
in which I would place it, as contradistinguished from 
precept and legislation ; I would point out the sabbatical 
rest as necessary to man, and that the great enemies of 
the sabbath, and consequently the enemies of man, are, 
all laborious exercises of the body or mind, and dissipa- 
tion, which force the circulation on that day in which it 
should repose ; while relaxation from the ordinary cares 
of life, the enjoyment of this repose in the bosom of 
one's family, with the religious studies and duties which 
the day enjoins, — -not one of which, if rightly exercised, 
tends to abridge life, — constitute the beneficial and ap- 
propriate service of the day. 

" I have found it essential to my own well being (as a 
physician) to abridge my labour on the sabbath to what 
is actually necessary. I have frequently observed the 
premature death of medical men from continued exer- 
tion. In warm climates and in active service this is 
painfully apparent. I have advised the clergyman also, 
in lieu of his sabbath, to rest one day in the week ; it 
forms a continual prescription of mine. I have seen many 
destroyed by their duties on that day ; and to preserve 
others, I have frequently suspended them, for a season, 
from the discharge of those duties. I would say, fur- 
ther, that, quitting the grosser evils of mere animal living 
from over stimulation and undue exercise of body, the 



200 THE SABBATH. 

working of the mind in one continued train of thought 
is destructive of life in the most distinguished class of 
society, and that senators themselves stand in need of 
reform in that particular. I have observed many of them 
destroyed by neglecting this economy of life. . There- 
fore, to all men, of whatever class, who must necessarily 
be occupied six days in the week, I would recommend 
to abstain on the seventh ; and, in the course of life, by 
giving to their bodies the repose and to their minds the 
change of ideas suited to the day, they would assuredly 
gain by it. In fact, by the increased vigour imparted, 
more mental work would be accomplished in their 
lives. A human being is so constituted that he needs a 
day of rest both from mental and bodily labour." 



BOOKS 



PUBLISHED BY G. LANE & P. P. SANDFORD, 
jFor tpe j^et^oTust Hpfscojpal <H1jnxc% 

AT THE CONFERENCE OFFICE, 200 MULBERRY-ST. 

NEW-YORK. 

A Treatise on Self-Knowledge, 

BY JOHN MASON, A. M. 

To which is prefixed a brief Memoir of the Author. 

A new Edition. Large 18mo. Forty -four cents. 

This has now been a standard work for nearly a century, and 
is one of the best that can be placed in the hands of an intelligent 
young- person to promote his advancement in knowledge and 
piety. It is divided into three parts ; the first treats of the "na- 
ture and importance" of self-knowledge ; the second shows " the 
excellence and advantage of this kind of science ;" and the third 
points out " how self-knowledge is to be obtained." The work 
itself is too well known to need any recommendation : of the 
present edition we may say that it is one of the neatest and most 
complete ever published in this country ; it contains all the notes, 
inserted in their proper places, while in many editions, both En- 
glish and American, they are either altogether omitted, or else 
lumped together at the end of the book. 

Misericordia; 

OR, 

CONTEMPLATIONS ON THE MERCY OF GOD, 

Regarded especially in its Aspects toward the Young. 

BY REV. J W. ETHERIDGE. 

Large 18ma ; Price Forty -four cents, in muslin. 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY LANE & SANDFORD. 

Life of Thomas Walsh, 

Composed in great part from his own Accounts. 

BY JAMES MORGAN. 

A new Edition. Large 18mo. Thirty-eight cents. 

Mr. Walsh was brought up a rig-id Papist, but was early led by 
the Spirit of truth to forsake the errors of Romanism. He soon 
afterward commenced his labours as a Methodist preacher, and 
closed his brief and useful life at the early age of twenty-eight. 
He was remarkable for his extraordinary acquaintance with the 
original Scriptures. " Such a master of Biblical knowledge," 
observes Mr. Wesley, " I never saw before, and never expect to 
see again. . . Whenever he preached, whether in English or Irish, 
the word was sharper than a two-edged sword ; so that I do not 
remember to have known an}- preacher who in so few years as 
he remained upon earth was an instrument of converting so 
many sinners from the error of their ways. O what a man to 
be snatched away in the strength of his years !" 



Memoirs of several Wesleyan Preachers, 

5sclectctr $xinci$z\lv from 

Jackson's Lives of early Methodist Preachers, and 
the Arminian and Wesleyan Magazines. 

One volume, 12mo. Seventy-five cents. 

This interesting volume comprises Memoirs of Thomas Olivers, 
James Creighton, Sampson Staniforth, Thomas Taylor, James 
Rogers, Thomas Roberts, and George Darby Dermott, chiefly 
written by themselves. Some of these were among the early 
coadjutors of Mr. Wesley. 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY LANE & SANDFORD. 

The Dairyman's Daughter. 

An Authentic Narrative. 

BY REV. LEGH RICHMOND. 

A new edition, with considerable additions. Large 18mo. 
Thirty-eight cents. 

Little Jane, the Young Cottager, 

And other Narratives. 
BY REV. LEGH RICHMOND. 

Large 18mo. Thirty-eight cents. 

Scenes in the Wilderness. 

An Authentic Narrative of the Labours and Sufferings 

OF THE 

J&otabtan J^tsstonarfes 

Among the North American Indians. 

BY REV. WILLIAM M. WILLETT. 

Large 18mo. Thirty-eight cents. 

Missionary Narrative 

Of the Triumphs of Grace, as seen in the Conversion of 
Kaffirs, Hottentots, Fingoes, &c, of S. Africa. 

BY REV. SAMUEL YOUNG, 

Twelve Years a Missionary in South Africa. 

Large 18mo. Thirty -one cents. 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY LANE & SANDFORD. 



Annals of the Poor. 

CONTAINING 

The Dairyman's Daughter— The Young Cottager— 
The Negro Servant — Cottage Conversations — 
Visit to the Infirmary — and The African Widow. 

BY REV. LEGH RICHMOND. 

Large 18mo. With three engravings. Fifty cents. 

In popularity, interest, and extensive usefulness, these tracts 
are generally admitted to be unrivalled ; and the present is the 
most complete edition of them that has ever been published. 

Life of Legh Richmond, 

&utjjor of ttie 
Dairyman's Daughter, Young Cottager, &c. 

Large 18mo. Forty -four cents. 

"This is an exceedingly interesting book. The subject was a 
most interesting character , and the present writer, whoever he 
may be, uses a pen not unworthy of the subject." — Zion's Herald 
and Journal. 

"In reading it we have said, 'O that every minister of the 
Church of England were a Legh Richmond ! In his family, he 
was loving and beloved ; in his religion, fervent and friendly ; in 
his closet, a Jacob ; in his study, a popular and admired author ; 
in his pulpit, a preacher of evangelical doctrine, authority, and 
spirit, and of an irresistible, pathetic eloquence ; in his parish, a 
pastor, and in every cottage he visited an angel of mercy ; in 
public life, his influence commanding, impulsive, holy, and be- 
nevolent ; in his death, leaving his church and the world a debtor 
to him and to his divine Master, who made him what he was, 
and doubtless said to him on passing the limits of time, 'Well 
done, good and faithful servant !' " — {Canada) Christian-Guardian. 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY LANE & SANDFORD. 



The Village Blacksmith, 

Or Piety and Usefulness exemplified, in a Memoir of 
Samuel Jgtcft, ^ 

Late of Micklefield, Yorkshire, England. 
BY JAMES EVERETT. 

Large 18mo. Fifty cents, in sheep or muslin. 

" The Life of Hick should be in the hands of every Christian 
philosopher : it is a most interesting account of a mind deeply 
impressed with religion, and furnishing a beautiful exemplifica- 
tion of the outpouring of a simple, benevolent, untutored spirit, 
full of hope and enthusiasm. . . . We have not for a long time 
seen a volume which we read with more curiosity and pleasure — 
curiosity in following the developments of the character of the 
natural and simple man, in his rough but honest and untutored, 
and often singularly correct, views of things — and pleasure at 
that unwearied pursuit of good, which marked every moment of 
his life." — Metropolitan Literary Journal. 

" Among the pleasing reminiscences of earlier years the writer 
recurs with peculiar delight to a slight personal acquaintance 
with this singularly good man, the eccentric orator of our village 
missionary meetings in the East and West Riding of Yorkshire. 
Even now his image stands forth in the memory of the past, in 
all the graphic peculiarity of its features, never to be forgotten, — 
the huge, unwieldly, herculean frame, the comical smile that 
played so harmlessly over the broad Atlantic of his good-humoured 
countenance, the shrewd and twinkling glance that darted from 
his little ' blue-gray' eye, or, above all, that transparent sincerity 
of goodness, that full-hearted enthusiasm of Christian love, which 
disarmed criticism, and conciliated universal good-will. Sam- 
uel Hick was a perfect original. Nature and grace never contri- 
buted to make such a man before, and we may safely say, in a 
subordinate sense, ' we shall never look upon his like again.' . . 
To all classes of readers this memoir will be a fund of entertain- 
ment and instruction. It stands alone. There is nothing like it 
in ancient or modern biography." — Rev. G. G. Cookman. 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY LANE & SANDFORD. 



Importance of Prayer Meetings, 

IN PROMOTING THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION. 

BY ROBERT YOUNG. 

18mo. Price Twenty -five cents. 

Treatise on Secret and Social Prayer, 

BY RICHARD TREFFRY. 

Large 18mo. Price Thirty-eight cents. 

Contents. — Definition of prayer — Spirit of prayer — The 

several parts of prayer — Encouragements to prayer — 

Advantages of prayer — Places and seasons appropriated 

to secret prayer — Excuses for the neglect of secret 

prayer considered— Social prayer illustrated — Reasons 

why men should pray with and for each other — On 

public meetings appropriated to social prayer. 

The author of this book, who has now gone to hie reward, was 

for nearly half a century a travelling preacher in the Wesleyan 

Methodist connection, and has long been distinguished as an able 

preacher and a sound and judicious divine. During a lengthened 

season of affliction, in which he was for months confined to his 

house, and chiefly to his bed, the subject of prayer, its importance 

and necessity, were in an unusual degree impressed upon his 

mind, and he was induced, when favoured with a measure of 

returning health, to throw his thoughts into the form in which 

they are presented in this volume. 

Essay on Secret Prayer, 

As the Duty and Privilege of Christians. 
BY JOSEPH ENTWISLE. 

18mo., in paper covers. Price Six cents. - 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY LANE & SANDFORD. 



Lectures to Children, 



ASSISTANT EDITOR of ■ CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE & JOURNAL.' 

"These Lectures are from the pen of Rev. George Coles, and, 
in his simple and attractive style when addressing children, con- 
vey a variety of scientific and other information, in a perspicuous 
manner, to the young mind. They are imbued with Christian 
principles, so that, while they point to the wonders of nature 
below, they direct the youthful student to the wonders and beati- 
tudes of heaven above " — Poughkeepsie Casket. 

"We have not, for a long time, taken a sabbath school book 
into our hands with which we have been so highly pleased. The 
object of the author has been, to "blend science with religion, so 
as to make the subject both entertaining and edifying, and to ex- 
pand the mind and amend the heart, at the same time." He 
therefore touches upon some of the principal works of creation, 
and thus, in an instructive and captivating style, leads the mind 
of the young reader ' through nature up to nature's God.' We 
hope it will receive, as it abundantly deserves, an extensive 
circulation." — Ziorts Herald. 

"We have read it with pleasure which we do not often derive 
from books of this description, on account of its admirable adapta- 
tion to the capacity and feelings of the child. The interest is 
preserved in every page, and in the discussion of the various 
subjects treated of, the author has drawn illustrations from the 
incidents of every-day life in such a manner as to communicate 
moral and religious instruction along with the more ordinary 
branches of knowledge." — Brooklyn Advocate. 



The Sunday School Orator, 

A Collection of Pieces, both in Prose and Verse. 

j^or <Sabbat!) School ^nttfbersar fes. 

BY REV. GEORGE COLES. 



BOOKS PUBLISHED BY LANE & SANDFORD. 



Selections from Old Humphrey's 

OBSERVATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 
One vol., large 18mo. Price Thirty-eight cents. 
" A few years since there appeared in the Weekly Visitor (a 
periodical published by the London Religious Tract Society) a 
number of essays or papers on various subjects of a moral and 
religious nature, which attracted considerable notice by the prac- 
tical good sense, the quaint humour, and above all, the truly 
Christian spirit which characterized them. A number of these 
papers were afterward republished in two volumes, severally 
entitled, ' Old Humphrey's Observations,' and ' Old Humphrey's 
Addresses,' in which form they were received with much favour 
by the religious public, both in Great Britain and in this country. 
The present work comprises a selection of the most interesting 
and instructive articles contained in the two volumes just men- 
tioned ; and we doubt not that those readers, whether old or young, 
who may favour it with a perusal, will find Old Humphrey to be 
neither an unpleasant nor an unprofitable companion." — Preface. 

Farmer Goodall and his Friend. 

BY THE 

AUTHOR OF "THE LAST DAY OF THE WEEK," ETC. 

Large 18mo. Thirty-eight cents. 
The style of this volume is very similar to that of the author's 
preceding works. It is a pleasing mixture of dialogue and nar- 
rative, drawing religious instruction from the ordinary events 
and circumstances of a farming life. The book, which is embel- 
lished with a number of wood engravings, is divided into four- 
teen chapters, under the following heads :— Farmer GoodalPs 
removal — His arrival at the farm — The survey of the farm — The 
best farming book — The two seeds — The good Shepherd — The 
unruly horse— The market— The lambs, and the springing corn— 
The lost lambs ; the fallow — The wheat harvest — The storm of 
wind — The ingathering— The barn-floor ; the grain of wheat. 



L6 o-jj 



